Daniel Ortega arriving at the Plaza de la Revolución, in Managua, on July 19.STRINGER / Reuters
The Nicaraguan journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro had on Sunday among the guests to his program
Esta Semana
to one of the most prominent political analysts in Nicaragua, José Antonio Peraza, who is also part of a group of experts that promotes electoral reforms to clean up the system controlled by Daniel Ortega. During the broadcast on YouTube —the program has been broadcast exclusively by that platform since the Chamorro newsroom was attacked and confiscated—, Peraza warned that under the Ortega regime "there are no conditions for a free and competitive election," in reference to the presidential elections scheduled for November. One day after the interview, the political scientist was arrested on the grounds that he had committed "acts that undermine independence, sovereignty and self-determination", in yet another example of the regime's intolerance towards critical voices. “We condemn the kidnapping of the political scientist Peraza.This Sunday he argued and demonstrated that in Nicaragua there are no conditions for a free and competitive election and today he is in prison for telling the truth, ”Chamorro denounced.
We condemn the kidnapping of the political scientist @joperaza, from the Grupo Promotor de las Reformas Electoral.
This Sunday in an interview in Esta Semana, he argued and demonstrated that in Nicaragua there are no conditions for a free and competitive election. Today he is in prison for telling the truth.
https://t.co/u4EzWcj5T3
- Carlos F Chamorro (@cefeche) July 27, 2021
With Peraza, 29 people have already been imprisoned by the regime since it began its new offensive against the opposition.
Those arrested include seven presidential candidates, including Cristiana Chamorro, daughter of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and the favorite to face Ortega according to polls.
Businessmen, lawyers, activists and three former guerrillas, Ortega's comrades in arms during the fight against the Somoza dynasty, have also been arrested, including Dora María Téllez, considered a national heroine and one of the most critical voices against the Government.
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During the interview on Sunday, Peraza warned that after Ortega's recent actions, "there are definitely no conditions" for the November 7 elections. The analyst had stated that “people are afraid to express their opinion to a pollster. When we have reached that situation, we can no longer even trust the information that people are giving you. " That fear is explainable when the government threatens with jail anyone who raises their voice against the regime. On Monday, before being arrested, Peraza recorded a video for social networks in which he warned of his arrest and stated that he was not "scared by the dictatorship." For the analyst, the Ortega regime "lives its last moments." This, he said, “is just one more episode that these people have created to intimidate and to make the people of Nicaragua suffer.That will soon be over. This dark night will soon end and we will be the people we have always wanted to be: free, peaceful, prosperous and happy ”.
"We are willing to pay this sacrifice and others for the freedom of Nicaragua, the dictatorship does not scare us, we know that it is living its last moments", the political scientist José Antonio Peraza left this message before being captured by the Police last night pic .twitter.com / KHFsexvfw4
- Confidencial Nicaragua (@confidencial_ni) July 27, 2021
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On the same Sunday, the jurist María Asunción Moreno, a former law faculty at the Jesuit Central American University (UCA), in Managua, denounced that on Saturday night at least 30 police officers raided her house "with the luxury of violence." According to Moreno's account, the officers destroyed the electrical security fence, the doors and the furniture of the house and beat the people who were at that moment in the home. The police, he adds, "stole" the opponent's vehicle, a BMW parked in the parking lot of the house. "I hold Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo [his wife and vice president] responsible if something happens to me or to my family," Moreno warned.
In early July, the lawyer had expressed her interest in running as a candidate for the opposition to participate in the November elections, but a day later the prosecution opened an investigation against her and summoned her for an interview. After announcing the appointment, Moreno wrote on his Twitter account: “How is the regime going to do? Are you going to jail all of Nicaragua? " After his house was raided, Moreno announced that he had decided to go into exile. “Faced with harassment, persecution and the threat of my imprisonment by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, I have decided to leave the country. I believe that from the harsh exile I will be able to contribute more than from the isolation and solitary confinement, to which our political prisoners are subjected, ”the opponent said from Twitter.
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