Important intellectuals from different countriesincluding Nobel Prize winners in literature Mario Vargas Llosa and Orhan Pamuk, and Princess of Asturias prizewinners Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, among nearly 500 They published a letter calling on the Daniel Ortega regime to end the repression in Nicaragua.
In the document entitled “You are and will be Nicaraguans” the signatories express their solidarity with the 92 Nicaraguans, including intellectuals, activists, journalists and religious, who have had their citizenship revoked by decree of the Sandinista regime, among them the writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli, sharp critics of Ortega.
“On February 9, 2023, the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo stripped 222 political prisoners of their citizenship after amending the Nicaraguan constitution.including university students, political activists, peasant leaders, priests and journalists,” read the document, which Ramírez shared on his Facebook wall.
“On February 15, another 92 Nicaraguans were stripped of their citizenship, including the writer Sergio Ramírez, winner of the Cervantes Literature Prize, and the famous poet Gioconda Belli. These facts violate the basic human right to a nationality and the prohibition on arbitrarily depriving a person of it, enshrined in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 20 of the American Convention on Human Rights,” he continued.
“The signers express our concern at the recent actions by the Nicaraguan government and we stand in solidarity with the citizens of Nicaragua who have had their nationality revoked,” read the letter, which includes the signatures of singer-songwriter Rubén Blades and writer Salman Rushdie, Junot Díaz, Rosa Montero, Margo Glantz, Héctor Abad Faciolince, Elena Poniatowska, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Richard Ford, Gonçalo Tavares, Nona Fernández, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Guadalupe Nettel, and Susan Choi.
“We call on the international community to speak up and take an active role in any action that can bring about an end to the abuses and the human rights abuses committed by the Ortega-Murillo regime. We also call on the Nicaraguan government to end the repression against its people,” he concludes.
Also performing are Edmundo Paz Soldán, Emmanuel Carrére, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Guillermo Arriaga, Javier Cercas, Jorge Volpi, Laura Restrepo, Leila Guerrero, Marcelo Piñeyro, María Fernanda Ampuero, Martín Caparrós, Rafael Gumucio, Carmen Aristegui, Winston Manrique, Jon Lee Anderson on , Lydia Cacho, Oscar Martínez, Javier Rodríguez Marcos, Berna González Harbor and Juan Cruz.
Also editors, publishers and directors of festivals in Latin America, including Pilar Reyes from Alfaguara; Silvia Sesé from Anagrama and Juan Casamayor from Páginas de Espuma; Sigrid Kraus, who directed Salamandra; Marisol Schultz, Director of the Guadalajara International Book Fair; Valerie Miles, director and editor of the Spanish magazine Granta; and Pilar del Río, translator and executor of the will of Nobel Prize winner José Saramago.