It's been a while since we talked about Nicaragua, but the nefarious crap that's been going on in the Central American nation for more than a year hasn't stopped. In fact, according to the United Nation's human rights office, things are most certainly getting worse.
From Reuters:
The U.N. human rights office on Tuesday criticized the arrest of 16 anti-government protesters in Nicaragua accused of arms trafficking, saying that the charges appeared to have been “trumped-up.”
On Monday, Nicaraguan authorities said the 16 detainees included student protesters such as Nicaraguan and Belgian national Amaya Coppens, who has been arrested previously.
Nicaraguan police also said the protesters were suspected of planning to carry out terrorist attacks in the Central American country, which has been roiled by demonstrations against the administration of President Daniel Ortega since April last year.
Rupert Colville, a spokesman in Geneva for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters the arrests looked like an attempt to silence criticism of the government.
So yeah, same greasy tricks, different year and people. President/ gutter trash dictator Daniel Ortega and his Vice President/power hungry despot/wife Rosario Murillo have been using their nation's military, police and masked militia-types to terrorize those opposed to their government's abusive policies for over a year now.
Violence and incarceration have been used as ways to shut up members of Nicaragua's judiciary, students protestors, intellectuals, members of the media and anyone else willing to stand up to the Ortega government. It's believed that at least 320 civilians have been murdered since protests, sparked by Ortega's plans to screw with his citizen's social security system, started in April of 2018. In many cases, targets of the Ortega government were able to escape to countries friendly to their cause, such as neighboring Costa Rica. Others? Not so much: just this week, the Roman Catholic Church accused a band of government thugs of beating a priest whilst taking control of a cathedral in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua.
No matter how deep the shit of our nations might be right now, it's important to remember that others have it just as bad, or worse.
Image via Wikipedia
