Nearly 500 intellectuals and writers from all over the world expressed their concern about the "abuses" and "violations of human rights" by the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and expressed their solidarity with the Nicaraguans who have been deprived of your nationality.
Winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature such as the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa (2010) and the Turkish Orhan Pamuk (2006), the Mexicans Elena Poniatowska, Juan Villoro, Guillermo Arriaga and Jorge Volpi; the Frenchman Emmanuel Carrère; the Spaniards Enrique Vila-Matas and Manuel Vilas; Briton of Indian origin Salman Rushdie; the Panamanian singer-songwriter Rubén Blades and the American journalist John Lee Anderson, among others, sign a letter expressing their feelings regarding these events with the motto "They are and will be Nicaraguans."
The signatories of the letter, among them also the American Jonathan Franzen, the Colombian Héctor Abad Faciolince and the Chilean Jorge Edwards, denounce that "these facts violate the fundamental human right to have a nationality and the prohibition to arbitrarily deprive them of it." any human being."
They also highlight that in recent years "at least eighteen universities have been arbitrarily canceled as a form of control in the face of the 2018 student rebellion that left 328 dead, nearly 2,000 injured and hundreds detained."
They also point out that the Ortega government "has canceled the legal status of more than 3,000 non-governmental organizations, including those that defend human and women's rights," highlighting that "twenty-six media outlets have been closed and more than two hundred journalists have had to go into exile".
They recall that "as if that were not enough, since 2018 entry to international human rights organizations has been prohibited, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights."
The signatories of the document urge the international community "to speak out and assume an active role in all actions that may lead to an end to the abuses and violations of human rights committed by the Ortega-Murillo regime."
They also ask the Nicaraguan government to "stop the repression against its people."
With the withdrawal of nationality in recent days from a group of 94 citizens and the exile of 222 political prisoners, the number of stateless Nicaraguans stands at 316.
In this sense, the signatories of the letter recall that "on February 9, 2023, the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, after modifying the Nicaraguan Constitution, stripped 222 political prisoners of their nationality, including university students, political activists , peasant leaders, priests and journalists.
They also highlight that "on February 15, another 92 Nicaraguans were stripped of their nationality, including the writer and Cervantes Literature Prize winner Sergio Ramírez and the renowned poet Gioconda Belli."
