Nicaraguan government sentences opposition leader to 10 years in prison 

The Nicaraguan government sentenced opposition leader Yubrank Suazo, who participated in the protests against President Daniel Ortega in 2018, to ten years in prison, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) said on Wednesday. 

At a courtroom in Managua, Judge Ulisa Tapia Silva announced Suazo’s sentence of five years in jail for conspiracy to undermine national integrity and five years for spreading false news, reported CNN. Additionally, he was fined around $1,500. 

CENIDH said the sentencing was unjust and claimed that authorities are violating the “guarantees of due process.”

Suazo was "prosecuted and sentenced without having committed any crime, nor having any link with criminal structures," the group said in a statement.

Suazo, 31, was arrested on May 18 of this year in his parent’s home on Masaya. He had already been detained in 2018 for participating in protests against the Central American country’s president but was released in 2019 after being pardoned along with other protesters. 

Suazo’s sentencing comes as the Ortega regime conducts a large-scale crackdown on any kind of opposition to the government, including individual people, NGOs, and civic organizations. 

This year alone, Nicaragua has closed more than 200 institutions already. In addition, the government announced that an additional 100 groups might be forced to shut down soon.

The closures have been approved by the Central American country’s congress, bringing the total number of NGOs that the regime has shut down in the last four years to 758. 

Most recently, the government shut down a local branch of Mother Theresa’s charity, the Missionaries of Charity, which had been in Nicaragua for 34 years operating a children's center, a home for girls, and a facility for the elderly.

Ortega has been widely criticized for the November 2021 presidential elections, when he was elected as president for the fourth consecutive term. Ahead of the elections, the regime arrested more than 46 opposition leaders and six presidential candidates.