By IWU-FI 9 September 2021
We repudiate the arbitrary arrests campaign of the Ortega dictatorship.
The bourgeois dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has been carrying out a campaign of arrests in preparing for the electoral farce in November. They have already made around 40 arbitrary arrests in the last three months. One of the most recent cases was the arrest on Saturday 4 September of Yader Parajon, in El Guasaule, on Honduras border. Yader is Jimmy Jose Parajon’s brother, killed by Ortega’s henchmen in the 2018 popular rebellion. The Mothers of April Association, which brings together relatives of victims of the 2018 repression, reported that he was held in solitary confinement and taken to the District III police station in Managua. The representatives of the repressive bodies reported he was “under investigation” and the following Tuesday he was presented at a court hearing, where he was allegedly given 90 days of detention as part of a judicial process for allegedly compromising “the independence, sovereignty and self-determination of Nicaragua”. This is how Ortega’s fascistic scheme operates to imprison the opposition under judicial set-ups plagued with nationalist phrases.
The same day, the trial of Medardo Mairena, Max Jerez, Jose Antonio Peraza and Freddy Navas Lopez started, who are crudely accused of “forming a gang to threaten national integrity”. Since its inception in June, the arrest campaign has put behind bars opposition leaders who have announced their intentions to run in the presidential election, seven in total. The Ortega dictatorship is desperate, as it is certain it will lose any halfway clean election.
Former FSLN leaders and historic anti-Somocista guerrilla fighters such as Dora Maria Tellez and Hugo Torres have also been arrested. In addition, Ortega is calling for the arrest of writer Sergio Ramirez, who was his vice-president and is now in exile.
In the last three months, dozens of activists and political leaders have been arbitrarily detained, using the repressive outrage of Law 1055, adopted last December, which precisely proposes the proscription of those who threaten sovereignty from holding public office.
As we stated in our June declaration, when the wave of arrests began, we consider that “it is necessary to build a political tool of the fighting people and defeat the dictatorship in the streets in a new 1979, a victorious 2018”. In this sense, we are in favour of the immediate release of all those imprisoned for political reasons and the reinstatement of the democratic rights of the heroic and rebellious Nicaraguan people.
In particular, from the IWU-FI, we call for international solidarity with the young Yader Parajon, arbitrarily detained, demanding that all attempts to apply law 1055 be stopped and that he be immediately released.
International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI)
9 September 2021
