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Published Tuesday, March 9, 2021
International News
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The Organization of American States, OAS, condemned the situation of political prisoners in Nicaragua and called on the government of Daniel Ortega for their immediate release.
The organization, based in Washington, D.C., includes 35 countries of the Americas Continent, such as the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Venezuela and even Nicaragua itself represented by Luís Exequiel Alvarado Ramirez as Ambassador Interim Representative.
According to the organization, they have evidence of the existence of more than one hundred political prisoners in Nicaragua.
"All of them have been presented as common prisoners, without fair trials, violating their fundamental freedoms, they are imprisoned together with common criminals, they suffer attacks and threats from common prisoners and they suffer systematic attacks on their physical integrity, mistreatment and repeated torture by their keepers," OAS said in its statement.
According to OAS, the detentions of political prisoners break Nicaraguan law, as well as international human rights.
The organization also confirmed that the relatives of political prisoners suffer constant threats from government representatives, as well as harassment by prison authorities and harmful treatment by prison officials.
The government of Nicaragua must allow the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, IACHR, to return to the country to report on the current situation of Human Rights, OAS added.
The organization once again asked for the immediate release of all political prisoners and called for the ending of harassment and persecution to ensure a process of free, fair and clear elections.
OAS is the world's oldest regional organization, dating back to the First International Conference of American States.
The OAS claim of the situation in Nicaragua is one of many made by international humans rights defenders organizations.
On Feb. 15, Amnesty International Organization published a report about the current human rights crisis that erupted in Nicaragua in 2018.
According to the worldwide organization of more than 10 million people defending human rights, the authorities of Nicaragua have pursued a policy of eradicating, at any cost, activism and the defense of human rights.
In their report “Nicaragua: Silence at any cost: State tactics to deepen the repression in Nicaragua,” Amnesty International exposes the alleged strategies used by the Nicaraguan authorities, where anyone who opposes government policies may lose their freedom and even their life.
“For almost three years, Daniel Ortega’s government has shown time and again that it is willing to do anything to prevent human rights from becoming a reality in Nicaragua," Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International said. "The Nicaraguan authorities must stop continuously trampling on the dignity of thousands of victims of repression.”
According to Guevara, when the violent crackdown on mass protests, which broke out in response to a series of reforms to the social security system, made the front pages of major newspapers around the world in 2018, it seemed that the human rights crisis in the country had reached its peak.
Local organizations continue to criticize the government’s use of the justice system to imprison activists following arbitrary proceedings, according to the report. At the end of November 2020, when the report was finalized, more than 100 people remained behind bars solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly," the organization said in a statement.
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How should international human rights defenders organizations take action to release Nicaragua from the Daniel Ortega dictatorship? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com
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