Managua, June 4 (EFE) .- International art and sports figures joined this Saturday to demand the freedom of more than 180 “political prisoners” in Nicaragua, a country governed by the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega.
In a telematic concert, personalities such as the winner of the Oscar for Best Original Song 2005, Jorge Drexler, the award-winning author Gioconda Belli, the National Basketball Association (NBA) free agent Enes Kanter Freedom, or the former Major League Baseball pitcher (MLB) Dennis Martínez, demanded that Ortega free the “political prisoners”, and asked the international community to join the petition.
The demand was also made by the Spanish singer-songwriter Pedro Guerra, the Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante, the singer-songwriters of the group Sal de Portugal Aníbal Chibilotti and Fernando Díaz, the Costa Rican rapper Nakuri, the Nicaraguan singer-songwriters exiled in Costa Rica Ceshia Ubau and Mario Ruiz, as well as such as the human rights defender Jared Genser, and the director for the Americas of Amnesty International, Erika Guevara Rosas.
According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), since 2018 Nicaragua has been going through a crisis that has already left at least 355 dead in anti-government demonstrations, while in the country’s prisons there are still more than 180 “political prisoners”, including opposition leaders, peasants, students, journalists, feminists, businessmen, or human rights defenders.
“I want the world to know that the crisis does not end, it only deepens, today, there are 184 people imprisoned for defending rights, people imprisoned for political reasons have denounced acts of torture, we call on the international community to put pressure on Daniel Ortega to free the women and men who are being arbitrarily detained and in terrible conditions”, declared Guevara Rosas, during the concert.
Genser stated that “Ortega and his regime have just stolen one more election (in November 2021), and they govern with an iron fist. His release and the conditions for it depend entirely on the support they receive from Nicaraguans themselves, as well as from the international community.”
Martínez asked Ortega to “reconsider”, and Kanter Freedom urged “the Nicaraguan government to stop torturing its own citizens, and to comply with the Nelson Mandela rules for the treatment of inmates (…). Let us unite to repudiate torture and to promote freedom and justice.”
Drexler and the other artists, who reiterated their solidarity with the “political prisoners” and their families, encouraged the audience to join the “Be Human” campaign through social networks, dedicated to demanding the freedom of those convicted of political reasons in Nicaragua.
The crisis in Nicaragua, which began with demonstrations against social security reforms and turned into massive protests against government abuses after the death of the first protesters, worsened in the 2021 elections, when Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth consecutive and second together with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with his main contenders in prison. EFE
wpr / av / ga
� EFE 2022. The redistribution and redistribution of all or part of the contents of Efe services is expressly prohibited, without the prior and express consent of Agencia EFE SA
