Ortega arrests and banishes Dr. Anely Perez and her family

On Saturday, March 25, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo banished Dr. Anely Perez Molina, a member of the opposition Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, to the United States.

Besides belonging to the Civic Alliance, Dr. Perez served as secretary of Nicaraguan Medical Unity, an organization that formerly posted alerts regarding the dictatorship’s poor management of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Thursday night, March 23, Perez, a dermatologist, had been forcibly taken from her home in Managua, amid a strong police presence. The dermatologist was then taken to the jail cells of the infamous El Chipote. She was subsequently accused of an undisclosed crime, with the “victim” the Nicaraguan State. This information was confirmed by several other exiled members of the political organization.

In the morning of March 25, Dr. Perez was put on a plane to the United States, together with her husband and children. According to sources, the United States had not been advised of the regime’s action. However, after some three hours at the Miami airport’s U.S. Immigration office, the family was allowed to enter the country. Banished student leader and released political prisoner Lesther Aleman tweeted that he hoped the U.S. authorities, “understand the utterly abnormal proceedings that Nicaragua is experiencing and that they facilitate her entry.”

Before being banished, Dr. Perez was criminally accused by the Ortega regime’s Attorney General’s Office. However, no description of the crime she supposedly committed “against the Nicaraguan State and society” appears in the Judicial Power’s online information system.

The accusation against Dr. Perez was presented to a Managua criminal court on March 24 by prosecutor Jorge Luis Arias. This courtroom is presided over by Judge Gloria Saavedra, the same judge that has sustained the charges against other political prisoners, including Monsignor Rolando Alvarez and sociologist Oscar Rene Vargas, the latter released to banishment on February 9, 2023. Bishop Alvarez remains in jail with a 26-year sentence.

Dr. Perez’ “express” treatment – being banished in less than 48 hours – may be due to her being the daughter of Sandinista guerrilla Cristian Perez, who was killed by Somoza’s national guard during a massacre in Xiloa in May 1979. She is also the step-daughter of former foreign minister Samuel Santos.

The Nicaraguan Association for Exiled Doctors (Asociacion Medica del Exilio de Nicaragua) issued a statement rejecting “energetically the arbitrary detention of Dr. Aney Perez Molina, a Nicaraguan citizen who has been as the service of the population through her arduous health work.”

“With her detention,” the statement continues, “the authoritarian regime of Daniel Ortega demonstrates that persecution, police sieges, threats and imprisonment of dissident civil society remain constant in the country.”

This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times