Legal Defense Fund for Nicaraguan POC
Support Legal Defense Fund for Nicaraguan Prisoner of Conscience Félix Maradiaga
To All Supporters of Democracy and Human Rights,
We are writing to ask for your urgent assistance to support this legal defense fund for my dear friend Félix Maradiaga, which will also be used to advocate for the release of all of Nicaragua’s more than 130 political prisoners.
On June 8, Félix, a leading dissident, was brutally beaten, arrested, and disappeared by Nicaraguan security forces along with dozens of other citizens, ahead of the country’s November 2021 presidential election. Earlier in the day, he had been summoned to appear before the public prosecutor’s office, where he was told he was under investigation for a long list of clearly baseless charges, including inciting foreign interference in internal affairs, soliciting military interventions, and organizing acts of terrorism and destabilization with funding by external entities. After the meeting, he was handcuffed, beaten up by a group of police, and dragged away. By opening the investigation against Félix and sentencing him to 90 days in preventive prison, the regime of President Daniel Ortega disqualified him as a possible candidate to run for President.
The day before his arrest, Félix gave his wife Berta clear instructions about what he wanted her to do if he was taken into custody. As Berta explained to me: “Félix told me that the cases of the other political prisoners in Nicaragua deserved just as much attention as his higher-profile case would likely get. He told me very clearly, do not simply campaign for my freedom. Tell the world that I will not leave my prison until I am the last of Ortega’s political prisoners. Please make something good come from this terrible situation and use my case to share the horrifying stories of so many innocent Nicaraguans and demand the immediate and unconditional release of all of us.”
Félix was born in Nicaragua and raised by a single mother after his father’s tragic death. When he was 12 years old, his mother sent him to the U.S., where he ended up in a refugee camp and later was taken in by a family in south Florida. He returned to Nicaragua for high school and college, then earned a Master’s of Public Administration at Harvard. He worked for Nicaragua’s Ministry of Defense to disarm and demobilize 2,400 guerrillas before moving to the private sector. In 2017, he became Executive Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policy. After the popular protests of April 2018 and the bloody repression that followed, he became a leader in the Blue and White National Unity (UNAB) movement. He testified in September 2018 before the United Nations Security Council about government repression in Nicaragua, prompting the Ortega regime to issue a warrant for his arrest, baselessly accusing him of “organized crime and financing of terrorism.” He was forced to flee the country but returned in September 2019 despite repeated threats to his life.
Nicaraguan police immediately placed him under round the clock surveillance. Still, Félix traveled around the countryside meeting civil society groups and was beaten by the police several times. His movements were increasingly restricted, and this June 1 police blocked him from leaving his home, where he remained under an illegal house arrest until being summoned to appear June 8. After more than three hours of interrogation, he was brutally beaten and taken away.
Now that Felix has been detained his family is facing a daunting situation. Félix’s non-profit was shut down and both their and his personal bank accounts were seized. Félix’s wife Berta and their beautiful seven-year-old daughter, Alejandra, live with family in Miami. They have applied for political asylum in the United States, where Berta does part-time consulting work for a non-profit group. She now faces enormous costs to fight for her husband’s freedom. Although Félix is receiving significant pro bono legal support, a case of this kind generates enormous expenses, including travel costs; security for local counsel; legal translation; printing; photocopying; and postage.
In addition, with her husband’s instructions to advocate for the release of all of the prisoners of conscience detained by the Ortega regime, Berta very much wants to have funds to include other prisoners and their families in these efforts.
Thank you so much for your generous support.
June 13, 2021
- J
- A
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