“I’m fine. Sad, angry, emotional, but okay,” she told me, at the same time that her voice broke into intense crying. “They still have other women locked up.”
By Maria Castañeda (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – I don’t remember if it was a year ago – maybe a little less, or a little more. The last messages we exchanged had to do with a birthday – hers or mine, I don’t remember that either. We ended with that phrase so often employed: “Hope to see you soon.” Missing was an “I love you;” or a “Be careful.”
“Be careful?” Did you wonder: “Of what?”
How can this story be told simply? They were on her heels. They were following her and watching her. They’d been after her for a while, because of her activities and her activism. She didn’t do anything, but that did it all. In a country where it’s a crime to defend freedom, to exist and resist, she met all the requirements for what happened later.
It was in the wee hours, or in the morning. They took her away without saying why. The Police detained her and took her to the women’s prison La Esperanza [“hope”], a name that reflects anything but the experiences of those inside. It took us several days to learn of her whereabouts and her emotional condition.
What is she accused of? Why did they detain her? No one knew. “We already told her not to go around doing those things, or one day they’d take her away,” said some of her relatives and acquaintances, in order to play down the fact that there wasn’t even a stated accusation against her, or an alleged crime, due process, or incriminating evidence that would clarify the reasons for her imprisonment.
In Nicaragua for some time now, there’s no logic to explain the government’s actions or the arbitrary way the authorities behave.
Weeks later, they told us that the reason she’d been detained is that someone leaked one of her videos to the Police, in which she was seen ripping an FSLN flag. As if at some moment our freedom of expression had been limited by not being able to openly profess opposition to a dictatorial regime and its symbols.
On September 5, they freed her. Or, better said, they took her out of the country because an agreement for banishment was negotiated with the United States. They haven’t returned the liberty they snatched from her when they put her