"They are and will always be Nicaraguans"declared almost 500 authors and intellectuals

Nearly 500 intellectuals and writers from around the world expressed their concern at “abuses” and “human rights abuses” by the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and expressed their solidarity with Nicaraguans who have been stripped of their citizenship.

Nobel laureates in literature such as Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa (2010) and Turkish Orhan Pamuk (2006), Mexicans Elena Poniatowska, Juan Villoro, Guillermo Arriaga and Jorge Volpi; Frenchman Emmanuel Carrère; Spaniards Enrique Vila-Matas and Manuel Vilas; British of Indian descent Salman Rushdie; Panamanian singer-songwriter Rubén Blades and American journalist John Lee Anderson, among others, sign a letter expressing their feelings about these events the motto “You are and will always be Nicaraguans”.

The letter’s signatories, including American Jonathan Franzen, Colombian Héctor Abad Facionce and Chilean Jorge Edwards, denounced that “these facts violate the fundamental human right to a nationality and the prohibition on arbitrarily depriving them of it”. any human.”

They also stress that in recent years “at least eighteen universities have been arbitrarily disbanded 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They also point out that the Ortega government “repealed the legal status of more than 3,000 non-governmental organizations, including those defending human and women’s rights,” and emphasize that “twenty-six media outlets and more than two hundred journalists had to be shut down.” to go into exile”.

They recall that “as if that were not enough, since 2018 entry into international human rights organizations has been banned, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights”.

The document’s signatories call on the international community to “speak out and take an active role in any action that may bring about an end to human rights violations and abuses perpetrated by the Ortega-Murillo regime.”

They also call on the Nicaraguan government to “end the repression against their people”.

With the stripping of citizenship 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, after amending the Nicaraguan Constitution, the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo stripped 222 political prisoners of their citizenship, including university students, political activists, peasant leaders, priests and journalists.

They also point out that “on February 15, another 92 Nicaraguans lost their citizenship, including the writer and Cervantes Literature Prize winner Sergio Ramírez and the well-known poet Gioconda Belli.”