Valeska Sandoval | |
---|---|
Nationality | Nicaragua |
Occupation | Student |
Valeska Sandoval is a Nicaraguan university student. She was active in 2018 Nicaraguan protests who has been repeatedly captured by pro-government forces, including once during an assault by pro-government paramilitary groups captured live on Facebook.
Originally from Ometepe Island. [1] During the 2018 Nicaraguan protests against Daniel Ortega, since May, she remained entrenched in the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN-Managua), when the campus was taken over by young protesters. In June, she was captured and tortured by pro-government vigilante groups, who sexually abused her and two of her university partners, before leaving them abandoned and without clothes on the outskirts of Managua. On 14 July, pro-government paramilitary groups attacked the university to dismantle the trenches. During the attack, Sandoval made a live broadcast on Facebook that went viral in which she said goodbye to her mother and affirmed her commitment to the democratization demands to the government. [2]
Sandoval disappeared on 20 July, being threatened and imprisoned in El Chipote prison, where she remained for six days and was beaten and tortured by the police. She reported that in her cell they received only one plate of food, despite being three people in it. [1] She was released on 25 July. [3] In July 2020 she traveled to the United States to request asylum, but was deported by the Donald Trump administration. [4]
On 24 April 2021, a person dressed in plainclothes was followed her in the Metrocentro Managua shopping mall, Managua, while she was shopping, and afterwards, while she was waiting for a taxi, a police officer took her hand and told her she was detained without offering explanation. A group of riot police arrived later, handcuffed her and took her away in a patrol car along with two other young men who she did not know nor what happened to them after seeing them in the vehicle. Sandoval was tortured again by police officers over the weekend, being beaten, kicked, waterboarded and tased. [5] She was released again on 26 April. [6]
José Daniel Ortega Saavedra is a Nicaraguan politician who has been President of Nicaragua since 2007. Previously he was leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as coordinator (1979–1985) of the Junta of National Reconstruction, and then as President of Nicaragua (1985–1990). During his first term, he implemented policies to achieve leftist reforms across Nicaragua. In later years, Ortega's left-wing radical politics cooled significantly, leading him to pursue pro-business policies and even rapprochement with the Catholic Church. However, in 2022, Ortega resumed repression of the Church, and has imprisoned prelate Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.
La Prensa is a Nicaraguan newspaper, with offices in the capital Managua. Its current daily circulation is placed at 42,000. Founded in 1926, in 1932 it was bought by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Zelaya, who had become editor-in-chief. He promoted the Conservative Party of Nicaragua and became a voice of opposition to Juan Bautista Sacasa, for which the paper was censored. He continued to be critical of dictator Anastasio Somoza García, who came to power in a coup d'état.
The National Autonomous University of Nicaragua is a public university in Nicaragua. Its main campus is located in Managua. The original campus, UNAN-Leon, is located in León and is now mainly used for medicine majors.
Confidencial is a weekly newspaper in Nicaragua, with offices in the capital Managua. It was founded in 1996 by Carlos Fernando Chamorro Barrios. Chamorro is the former director of the Sandinista National Liberation Front newspaper Barricada and the son of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, Nicaraguan journalist and former editor of La Prensa whose murder in the last year of the rule of the Somoza family influenced public sympathy for the FSLN rebels.
The Campeonato Nacional de Fútbol Femenino is the highest league of women's football in Nicaragua. Established in 1996, it is run by FENIFUT.
The protests against Daniel Ortega were a series of protests against President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega and actions performed by his government, the dismantling of the opposition, and violence against peaceful protesters. The protests began in 2014, when the construction of the Nicaragua Canal was about to begin, and several hundred protesters blocked roads and clashed with police during the groundbreaking of the canal. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans began to protest against President Ortega for what they believe to be a corrupt electoral system.
The following lists events in the year 2018 in Nicaragua.
The 2018 Nicaraguan protests began on 18 April 2018 following a move by the government of Daniel Ortega to reform social security. Following the deaths of protesters, demonstrations intensified and grew into a large anti-Ortega movement seeking his removal from office.
Silvio José Báez Ortega, OCD is a Nicaraguan Discalced Carmelite and a prelate of the Catholic Church. He earned a doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and then served primarily in Guatemala and the Vatican from 1989 to 2009. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Managua. He left Nicaragua and went into exile in April 2019 after receiving threats against his life.
The 2018 Nicaraguan protests began on 18 April 2018 when demonstrators in several cities of Nicaragua began protests against the social security reforms decreed by President Daniel Ortega that increased taxes and decreased benefits. After five days of unrest in which nearly thirty people were killed, Ortega announced the cancellation of the reforms; however, the opposition has grown through the 2014–2018 Nicaraguan protests to denounce Ortega and demand his resignation, becoming one of the largest protests in his government's history and the deadliest civil conflict since the end of the Nicaraguan Revolution. On 29 September 2018, political demonstrations were declared illegal by President Ortega.
Amaya Eva Coppens Zamora is a Belgian-born Nicaraguan student activist. She is a leading figure of the April 19 University Movement, founded during protests against the government of President Daniel Ortega. She was chosen as an International Woman of Courage in March 2020.
Vilma Núñez de Escorcia is a Nicaraguan lawyer and human-rights activist. Born to a single mother, she developed an early concern for social justice. As an undergraduate studying law at National Autonomous University of Nicaragua in León, she met future senior government officials Carlos Tünnerman and Sergio Ramírez, and became one of the survivors of the 23 July 1959 student massacre by the Somoza National Guard. She joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front around 1975 and in 1979 was imprisoned and tortured by the Somoza regime. She was freed days before the FSLN insurrection succeeded on 19 July 1979. When they took power, she served as vice-president of the Supreme Court of Justice, then as director of the National Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.
Sheyla Guadalupe Flores Rivas is a Nicaraguan footballer who plays as a forward for Deportivo Saprissa and the Nicaragua women's national team.
Cristiana Chamorro Barrios is a Nicaraguan journalist, nonprofit executive and political candidate. Vice-president of La Prensa, she was an aspiring presidential candidate in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election until the Ortega government disqualified her from running and ordered her arrest in early June 2021.
Victor Hugo Tinoco Fonseca is a Nicaraguan politician and former Sandinista guerilla. He was Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs with the Sandinista National Liberation Front, ambassador to the United Nations and a deputy in the National Assembly. In the late 1990s he grew critical of Daniel Ortega and was expelled from the party in 2005, joining the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) instead and later its successor, the Democratic Renewal Union (Unamos) party. In June 2021, he was part of a wave of arrests of opposition figures, including seven aspiring opposition candidates for president in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election.
Miguel de los Ángeles Mora Barberena is a Nicaraguan journalist and political candidate. With his wife Verónica Chávez, he founded cable news channel 100% Noticias. In June 2021, Mora was arrested in a wave of detentions of opposition figures and other civic leaders, including seven aspiring opposition candidates for president in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election.
Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios is a Nicaraguan journalist and politician. He began his career in journalism working at La Prensa, following the 1978 assassination of its editor, his father, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal. Working on the side of the Contras in exile in the 1980s, he returned to the country in 1989 when his mother Violeta Barrios de Chamorro ran for president, and following her election, served as a Nicaraguan ambassador. He later became defense minister. In the 21st century, Chamorro has been a city councilor for Managua and deputy in the National Assembly, also for Managua. On 25 June 2021, he became part of a wave of arrests of opposition and civic figures in Nicaragua.
Suyén Barahona Cuan is a Nicaraguan activist. She is president of the Democratic Renewal Union party (Unamos), an opposition group that is the successor to the Sandinista Renovation Movement. She is also a member of the Blue and White National Unity opposition group that formed following the outbreak of anti-government protests in April 2018. In June 2021, she was arrested alongside other opposition figures and pre-candidates for president in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election.
Jaime Chamorro Cardenal was a Nicaraguan newspaper editor and publisher. A civil engineer by training, journalism was the family business, as his father owned the newspaper La Prensa. Chamorro joined La Prensa in 1974, where he worked for 47 years and served as publisher for 28, from 1993 until his death in 2021.
This is a timeline of the 2020 Nicaraguan protests. It covers events from February to December 2020.