The day Sheynnis Palacios won Miss Universe, Jared Ramírez decided to grab a Nicaraguan flag that he had in his house and go out into the street to celebrate the triumph of the first woman in the country’s history to achieve that title.
It never crossed his mind that that night I would end up in jail much less that he would spend more than nine months there.
“I never took it as a political celebration. “I took the flag because it is the flag of my nation and I went out into the streets,” Ramírez tells BBC Mundo from Guatemala City, where he arrived on September 5 after an agreement between Nicaragua and Guatemala and the United States that allowed the release of 135 prisoners.
Ramírez, 35, was aware, however, that the flag had the shield invertedconsidered a sign of protest against the government of Daniel Ortega, and it had a legend that said: “No more dictatorship.”
According to the accusation, he was arrested for “aggravated robbery and illegal possession of weapons.”
The release of Ramírez and the rest of the prisoners was for humanitarian reasons and was achieved after mediation by the United States. According to the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners in Nicaragua, there are still 36 political prisoners.
This Tuesday, five days after the exile, the Supreme Court of Justice of Nicaragua, close to the Ortega government, reported in a statement that it stripped the nationality of the 135 political prisoners sent to Guatemala and also confiscated their assets.
The statement ensures that those “convicted of criminal acts” promoted “violence, hatred, terrorism and economic destabilization” and that the confiscation of all their assets is so that they respond for “the severe material and immaterial damages.”
On November 18, 2023, when the Miss Universe pageant took place, Ramírez had gone out to celebrate her son’s third birthday.
When she returned home and found out about Sheynnis Palacios’ victory in the beauty pageant, she took the flag that she had kept since 2018, the year she participated in the protests against the Ortega government, and left on her motorcycle.
The flag, he says, was rolled up in his hand.
“I didn’t know there were political prisoners. The misinformation in Nicaragua is incredible. I only knew about a few people, but I didn’t know that there were so many political prisoners,” she says.
Ramírez had decided years before no longer participate in demonstrations and “keep silent” for fear that something would be done to him and his family.
The crime of demonstrating
Although in Nicaragua since September 2018 the government has banned demonstrations and considers them a crime, last November Citizens took to the streets to celebrate the victory of the Nicaraguan in the beauty pageant.
It was the first time in years that crowds with blue and white flags were seen in the streets of the country. There were celebrations in cities such as Managua, Diriamba, Jinotega. Several people ended up in jail.
That night, Ramírez says that he spent approximately half an hour at a celebration in Managua when a man approached him to ask what his flag said and when he saw the legend and the inverted shield, he stopped him. Then more people began to surround him.
The triumph of Palaces as Miss Universe has become a controversial and even political issue in Nicaragua.
After her victory, Ortega banished the owner of the Miss Nicaragua franchise, Karen Celebertiand accused her of “conspiracy and treason.”
Last May the owner of the Miss Universe organization, Anne Jakrajutatipstated through Instagram that Palacios was living in “indefinite exile.”
However, later the Nicaraguan said that was not the case.
“I want to inform you that I am not exiled, I want to inform all the media here that I am not exiled. The doors of my country are open to go celebrate with all Nicaraguans,” she stated.
Sheynnis Palacios, however, is the only Miss Universe who has not returned to her country to celebrate the crown in the last 20 years, according to a count published by the newspaper La Prensa.
Although on several occasions he has assured that he will return to the country, he only has two months left until his reign ends.
“I felt: ‘This ended here, they are going to kill me’”
Ramirez He was imprisoned for more than nine monthsfrom November 18, 2023 until September 5. “I was imprisoned for celebrating the triumph of Miss Universe,” she says.
“They took photos of me, they took my ID, they started telling me: ‘We are from the Front (Sandinista, of which Ortega is a part).’ “They took the keys to my motorcycle from me, they started an interrogation,” Ramírez remembers about the day they arrested him.
They then took him to the police precinct where an officer told him: “You know what? You are worthy of being shot and for this to be over. Because of you the country is like this.”
After the death threat, Ramírez felt afraid.
“It was the moment when I felt: ‘This ended here, they are going to kill me, they are going to throw away my body and say it was a murder, a robbery, an assault.’ This is what I thought and I began to ask the Lord for forgiveness, I felt very afraid for my life at that moment.”
The reasons why some of the 135 imprisoned ended up in prison are diverse.
Journalist Víctor Ticay, for example, was locked up for broadcasting a religious procession through Facebook; to Óscar Parrilla and Kevin Laguna for trying to draw a mural in honor of the Miss Universe in the city of Estelí, about 150 kilometers north of the capital of the Central American country; to Anielka García for making some shirts in honor of the 2018 crisis; and Olesia Muñoz doesn’t even know why they took her out of her house.
In jail for a comment on networks
It is the second time that Olesia Muñoz She became a political prisoner. The first time was in 2018, when he spent ten months in prison. On that occasion, she was accused of terrorism, organized crime, and illegal carrying of weapons.
This time they imprisoned her in April 2023, she spent 17 months in jail: they accused her of “cybercrime.”
Muñoz learned after they took her from her house that They accused her of having commented on an alleged publication on social networks where a bishop criticized the government.
The publication, however, she says, never existed: it was fabricated. Furthermore, she states, “I don’t even have networks” and says that due to the persecution of priests by the government, she “out of prudence” had tried to withdraw a little.
The conditions that political prisoners experienced in prisons in Nicaragua have been denounced from Guatemala, where they are held.
Jared Ramirez He claims that he suffered physical and psychological abuse. When he was first arrested, he says that an officer hit him twice on the back of the head.
“They told us: ‘You’re not going to get out of here.’ We had less rights than any common prisoner. We only had one visit a month, for 30-40 minutes. We had a patio and sun 10-15 minutes a day. We spent all our time locked up, in suffocating heat.”
Olesia Muñoz assures that she was “practically in a cage: iron on the roof, iron on the sides and the heat was unbearable. “I was locked up all day.”
start over
Last week, the Guatemalan government welcomed those it considers “political prisoners.”
“Once in Guatemala, these people will be offered the opportunity to apply for legal ways to rebuild their lives in the United States or other countries,” said Joe Biden administration National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
This is the second group of political prisoners to be banished from Nicaragua in the last two years. The first was on February 9, 2023, when a group of 222 were flown to Washington.
“My priority is for this process to end as soon as possible so that I can settle down financially and bring my wife or that organizations help me be able to reunite with my family. A reunion and starting over again. “This is a new beginning,” says Ramírez, who would like to be able to give his son a “better future” in the United States.
“Really the most painful thing was leaving my homeland. I love my nation, I know the situation that Nicaragua is going through. I had to leave churches, families, a life consecrated to God,” she says.
But one day he is convinced that he will be able to return to Nicaragua. “Without any fear, without any fear to be able to be with those people I left.”
Before September 5 Ramírez had never been on a plane.
His first time was to be banished.
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