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This statement was originally published on the Atlas Network blog.
Atlas Network’s Center for Latin America strongly condemns the Nicaraguan government’s repressive actions against its critics, including the beating and imprisonment of presidential candidate Félix Maradiaga and economist Juan Sebastián Chamorro. As was widely reported by international media, including the Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Guardian, CNN en Español, BBC, and other outlets, the Nicaraguan government has continued its authoritarianism—with its attack on opposition members with violence and torture threatening to sink the country into an outright institutional crisis, risking becoming a failed state.
Where there is no freedom of speech and freedom of action, there is no freedom of conscience. Intimidation and prosecution of this kind are not found in well-functioning liberal democracies.
Félix Maradiaga and Juan Sebastián Chamorro were both past participants of Atlas Network events and training programs through their local think tanks Fundación Libertad and FUNIDES, respectively. Even though both organizations have not been part of the network for a few years, Félix and Juan Sebastián are fully committed to fostering an open and democratic society based on equality before the law and human freedom.
Atlas Network’s Center for Latin America condemns these actions by the Nicaraguan government—as it has condemned other similar acts of violence to neutralize dissent (such as in Cuba and Venezuela in recent years)—and it urges world leaders to speak up against what is now a brutal authoritarian dictatorship falsely masquerading as democracy.
Center for Latin America
Atlas Network
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