A Voice For the Voiceless
The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. We recruit graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.
The Impact of Service
|
.jpg)
Translate this page:
Press Release October 5, 2008
San Salvador, October 5, 2008
We Denounce and Condemn the Persecution by the Government of Daniel Ortega against Feminists and Defenders of the Human Rights of Women
The Institute for Women’s Studies “Norma Virginia Guirola de Herrera” CEMUJER, the Institute for Human Rights of the Central American University (IDHUCA), the Feminist Collective for Local Development, Women Transforming, Las Dignas, AMUSAMECO, Las Mélidas, Economic and Social Micro-region and independent feminists of El Salvador, denounce and condemn the systematic campaign and persecution with threats, and false accusations that have been faced for several months by the Autonomous Women’s Movement of Nicaragua, the Network against Violence against Women of El Salvador, women activists and feminists and the International Cooperation by the government of Daniel Ortega.
The head of state of the Nicaraguan Government discredits and disrespects organisms defending the human Rights of women and continues its attacks against the International cooperation, referring to it with insulting phrases such as: “the flies stand in the filth” “go somewhere else with your crumbs”. The head of state of Nicaragua, has induced irregular judicial processes not in tune with justice against the feminists, on the other hand with his aggressive speeches he has provoked his supporters to massively violate, lynch, and attack the women of the movement on the street. Furthermore, September 26, there was a call to the “divine mobs” to organize forceful confrontations, armed with sticks, rocks, machetes, and mortars, mobs who gave themselves the right to carry arms, detain and search vehicles to impede or prohibit the circulation of anyone without justifiable motive. Moreover, the President of the Republic Daniel Ortega attacked the media and journalists calling them ‘puppets of the empire’, “children of Goebble” and, finally making use of the power that blinds and darkens promised to bring war against all autonomous civil society.
All of this panorama gives us the measure of a government that is intolerant and incapable of dialoguing with his adversaries, and launches a machinery of persecution and by considering that all the people who dissent are their enemies and therefore they must destroy them. The message being sent to the nation is to instill fear and quiet the protesting voices of the feminists and women’s organisms, isolating the women’s movements and putting in question their credibility.
In this setting of insecurity for the Nicaraguan feminists, Zoila América Narváez must desist her lawsuit against the state of Nicaragua for the lack of access to justice with Daniel Ortega remaining in impunity for the crime of sexual abuse which he committed against her, during her childhood and her adolescence.
For the feminists and women of the Autonomous Movement and the Network against Violence against Women, they have begun a witch hunt, an extremely dangerous environment has developed for their own physical safety generating conditions favorable to Femicides and Disappearances of women.
Before this grave and alarming situation, CEMUJER, the IDHUCA, the Feminist Collective for Local Development, Women Transforming, Las Dignas, AMUSAMECO, Las Mélidas, Economic and Social Micro-region and independent feminists of El Salvador are showing solidarity with their Nicaraguan sisters and also condemn the repressive and misogynist measures used by Ortega, therefore they respectfully request that Amnesty International will communicate the current oppressive conditions in Nicaragua to all the member states so that they may join together in solidarity with the Autonomous Women’s Movement, the Network against Violence against Women of El Salvador, the Feminists and with the International Cooperation, sending letters to the President Ortega demanding: Cease the Repression against women and the Cooperation.