Nicaraguan police have arrested three men on suspicion of planting explosives on a bridge leading to the country’s most important port that was damaged in a weekend blast, friends and relatives of the detainees said on Tuesday.
The bridge to Puerto Corinto in western Nicaragua suffered cracks in the Saturday evening attack, which came amid anti-government protests. The bridge has since been repaired, according to Reuters witnesses.
“My son was captured on Sunday at four in the afternoon,” Nubia Sandoval, the mother of one of the three suspects arrested, Douglas Villanueva, told Reuters.
Sandoval said her son had taken part in protests against the government, but denied he had anything to do with the attack.
The others arrested were Carlos Cardenas and Henry Lara, opposition activist lawyers from a political party in the nearby city of Chinandega, said Roberto Lira, a friend of Cardenas.
Cardenas was arrested on Monday, Lira said. He said neither Cardenas nor Lara were involved in the bridge attack.
On Monday, September 2, Maria Oviedo, lawyer and human rights advocate from Nicaragua’s Permanent Commission for Human Rights will be sentenced.
Maria Oviedo, an attorney with Nicaragua’s Permanent Commission for Human Rights (CPDH) who has defended a number of the regime’s political prisoners, was declared guilty on Thursday, August 29, following a trial that lasted over ten hours.
The charge, obstruction of official functions, stemmed from an incident last July 26 involving Oscar Lopez, a police lieutenant who insulted her and attempted to fondle her during a visit with political prisoner Cristhian Fajardo in the Masaya police delegation.
On the evening prior to the trial, human rights advocates denounced that the police were directing the deliberate harassment and aggression aimed at the lawyers for the political prisoners and members of the opposition. At the same time, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission urged the Ortega government not to criminalize the work of the human rights advocates in the country, making specific mention of the case of Attorney Maria Oviedo.
Oviedo’s sentence will be read on Monday, September 2nd. At the end of July 2019, Oviedo was illegally held for over 50 hours in the Masaya jail cells and at the infamous El Chipote jail in Managua.
Members of the Permanent Commission for Human Rights were waiting outside the Managua courthouse to hear the verdict. The lawyers took advantage of the occasion to denounce the fact that Nalia Ubeda, the judge from Managua’s third local criminal court, didn’t even allow a pause so that Oviedo and her colleague and attorney Leyla Prado could have lunch.
“It’s one more indication of the cruelty with which they’ve treated human rights advocates, because Leyla Prado is currently recovering from a renal illness. That didn’t matter to the court, and they ran the trial in a single unbroken session,” complained CPDH lawyer Karla Sequeira.
Lawyers constantly harassed
Meanwhile, attorney Aura Estela Alarcon, a member of the Legal Defense Unit, filed a complaint after a police chief was observed protecting a group of people in his private office, minutes after they had assaulted and robbed her in front of some thirty police agents who refused to come to her aid. This, she affirmed, occurred on August 19th.
The story of Attorney Maria Oviedo who went from being a victim of police mistreatment to an accused perpetrator.
Lawyers for both current and released political prisoners have been targets of police harassment. Some now face biased legal processes, harassment, threats and attempts on their lives.
Lawyers of the current and released political prisoners in Nicaragua have now become targets of repression in the face of the de facto State of Siege imposed by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
The most recent episode occurred on Friday, July 26 when attorney Maria Oviedo appeared in the Masaya police station for a routine matter, together with her client, released political prisoner Cristian Fajardo. Instead of processing her client’s complaint, she was violently detained by police officials. She then spent 52 hours in jail.
“From the moment that we arrived at the police station, we were treated grotesquely.
The attitude the police assumed towards us could practically be termed obscene, even though we’ve already become resigned to the mistreatment the defenders of human rights and the released prisoners receive in the police stations,” noted Oviedo.
The lawyer asked Fajardo to leave in order to avoid a larger conflict. When she returned to pick up the documents she had requested be admitted, a police officer shoved her and others dragged her through a hallway within the police station.
“He said: ‘Get out or I’ll throw you out.’ I repeated that I needed him to give me my documents, and that I wasn’t leaving until he gave them to me. At that moment, the police official gave me a shove. I told him to please respect me, and after that you can see in the video what happened,” the lawyer recounted.
Oviedo has been practicing law for 13 years. Before the April rebellion, she had been a prosecutor for the District Attorney’s office, but she resigned due to the human rights violations being committed against the political prisoners that she now defends.
The human rights lawyer remained in jail for 52 hours. She declares that that experience made it clear that “the status of attorney means nothing to them.”
Fue arrestada luego de dar una bofetada a un agente que la tocó “de forma lasciva” mientras acompañaba a un manifestante excarcelado que había sido citado a la Policía de la ciudad de Masaya, informó el secretario ejecutivo del organismo, Marcos Carmona
Una abogada de la no gubernamental Comisión Permanente de Derechos Humanos (CPDH) fue arrestada este viernes mientras realizaba un trámite en una estación de Policía en Nicaragua, país sumergido en una grave crisis sociopolítica.
La abogada María Oviedo, defensora de los derechos humanos por la CPDH, fue detenida luego de dar una bofetada a un agente que la tocó “de forma lasciva”, mientras acompañaba a un manifestante excarcelado que había sido citado a la Policía de la ciudad de Masaya, informó el secretario ejecutivo del organismo, Marcos Carmona.
El activista sostuvo que, detrás del arresto de Oviedo, hay una estrategia para detener a los defensores de los derechos humanos y que el Gobierno “continúe reprimiendo al pueblo“, en medio de la crisis que mantiene enfrentado al presidente Daniel Ortega con una aparente mayoría de nicaragüenses.
La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) exigió la “liberación inmediata” de Oviedo, quien es beneficiaria de medidas provisionales del organismo.
Se imaginan que la puchita María oviedo haya sido tratada por estos policias, que va primero bien verguiada y después una fianza para que no ande de paradita, solo aqui en Nicaragua se ve este abuso con nuestros azulitos porque queremos paz, paz, paz. pic.twitter.com/Y4IGpES8bx
Human rights lawyer who's defended Nicaragua's political prisoners has herself been arrested, imprisoned and charged with "obstructing justice". Part of wave of repression unleashed in wake of protests to mark the day of the student on Thursday #SOSNicaraguahttps://t.co/dSzu8M7Ubw
The court also reminded the Nicaraguan State that “hindering the work of advocates, as well as ignoring the provisional measures determined by the Inter-American Court, constitute incompliance with your international obligations.”
This Tuesday, July 17, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights posted on Twitter that they “urge an end to the harassment” of human rights defenders in Nicaragua. The post referred to a recent episode where some six police patrol cars surrounded the building where the Defensores del Pueblo [People’s Defenders] have their office. The group is made up of lawyers who defend the political prisoners of Daniel Ortega’s regime.
They also reminded the State of Nicaragua that “hindering the work of [human rights] defenders, as well as disregarding the provisional measures determined by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, constitute acts of incompliance with your international obligations.”
The siege mounted against the lawyers began around 8:40 a.m. when six patrol vehicles, carrying some thirty members of the Police special forces, stationed themselves along the two access routes to the attorney’s offices, essentially surrounding the installations. The offices, located in the Los Robles sector of Managua, are coordinated by Dr. Julio Montenegro.
Later, one of the police commanders began to take photos and videos of those entering and leaving the building. They also detained and took data from vehicles attempting to enter the access roads that lead to the back part of the building, Montenegro denounced.
According to Montenegro, the siege occurred because the lawyers were receiving five people who had been involved in the occupation of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) in Managua between May and July of 2018. These five were in the building to file a complaint regarding another five people who were detained the previous week. One of these recent detainees, from the town of Sebaco, Matagalpa, is missing.
Ongoing protests against the Nicaraguan government have led to violent clashes, and the crackdown by security forces has engulfed the country’s scientists, causing some to flee their homes in fear for their lives.
The student-led protests started in April in response to a decree from President Daniel Ortega that increased social security taxes and reduced pensions. Ortega’s increasingly authoritarian administration tried to quell the protests with deadly force, which sparked demonstrations across Nicaragua. Since then, fierce confrontations between protesters, police and activists supporting the government have resulted in more than 300 deaths.
Universities have fired faculty members who have criticized the administration’s response to the demonstrations, and scientific conferences have been moved or postponed. In early December, the government shut down the offices of nine non-governmental organizations (NGO), including the Fundación del Río, which focuses on environmental protections for the southeastern region of Nicaragua. The state seized the property of all 9 NGOs and they can no longer operate legally in the country.
An economic crisis that has proliferated in the wake of the political unrest resulted in emergency cuts to the 2018 budget in August. They included a roughly 7% reduction to the National Council of Universities, Nicaragua’s governing body for higher education institutes.
The trouble has even affected the Nicaraguan National Academy of Sciences, which released several statements in April, May and June in support of students and academic freedom. Its president, lawyer María Luisa Acosta, fled the country in May after receiving death threats. The threats stemmed from those statements of support and her long-standing criticism of government projects that would impact Indigenous groups and the environment.
On 17 March 2017, indigenous rights defender Lottie Cunningham Wren received threats against herself, CEDHJUCAN’s staff, and other human rights defenders on Facebook.
Lottie Cunningham Wren is a lawyer and founder of the Centro por la Justicia y Derechos Humanos de la Costa Atlántica de Nicaragua (Center for Justice and Human Rights of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua – CEJUDHCAN). She works with over 100 remote communities to help indigenous peoples exercise their legal rights to protect natural resources.
Lottie was an expert witness in the Awas Tingni vs. Nicaragua case, before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This case resulted in a tremendous land rights victory for indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. Lottie`s goal now is to implement that decision and help communities on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua demarcate and title their lands.
Lottie has received threatening letters warning her not to continue her work with the communities and there was a kidnapping attempt against her in May 2015 in one community. Her colleagues have received threatening phonecalls warning them against speaking out like Lottie.
/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-wordpress-client-uploads/infobae-wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/27101235/maria-oviedo-1920.jpg)
