This conviction is part of a cycle of scheduled trials against 47 opponents of the dictator Ortega. In June 2021 he imprisoned them so that he could run in an election that he won unopposed.
“I feel fulfilled in any place where I can contribute something, I like working with human beings”, Dora María Téllez declared to this journalist while we were working on the book 1325 Women Weaving Peace.
At the age of 20, he abandoned his medical studies and joined the guerrillas. She was not willing to sit idly by in the face of a dictatorship like Somoza’s. She was one of the protagonists of the offensive and after coming to power
She was appointed Minister of Health. During her work in said Ministry, she carried out an intense vaccination campaign among the younger population that was awarded by the United Nations for being “an exceptional advance in health.”
She is a fighter convinced of all her actions and with great credibility among Nicaraguans thanks to her honesty. She confessed that she was satisfied with the first advances of the Sandinista revolution: “she has greatly benefited women”, she said.
Daniel Ortega Saavedra, the same age as Dora, came to power from 1985 to 1990 and later from 2007 to the present, he has been in power for a total of 27 years, becoming the main dictator of the American continent.
Over the years came discontent, frustration.
Dora María has not only had to face the Ortega government, but she has also had to face multiple obstacles in the defense of certain values, but she has always had the support of many people, who have accompanied her in her struggle. She is a very popular and beloved woman in Nicaragua .
In 2004 the United States Government denied him entry to that country to attend some courses at Harvard University. Quickly, 112 professors from said University, together with other professors from 15 American universities, published a statement in his defense stating that it was “a persecution against those who made possible the overthrow of the atrocious and bloody dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.
The current President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, has continued his line of repression and in 2007 decided to outlaw the Sandinista Renovating Movement, the party of his former guerrilla comrades. In June 2008, Dora began a hunger strike at the Metrocentro roundabout, in the heart of the city of Managua, next to the Cathedral, to claim the legality of her group and show her “solidarity with thousands of Nicaraguans who suffer from hunger.” , who live in settlements in subhuman conditions, who are unemployed…”.
Twelve days later, her life was in danger and she had to be admitted to a hospital in a very delicate state.
In those hard days, Dora had the support of numerous personalities from the world of culture such as Mario Benedetti, Eduardo Galeano, Juan Gelman, Noam Chomsky, Salman Rushdie or Bianca Jagger, who published in a letter: “We admire Dora’s courage and commitment Maria Tellez. Her integrity, her prestige, dedication and the risk to her life by spending thirteen days on a hunger strike motivates us to ask the Government of Nicaragua to think carefully about the consequences of not meeting the demands that she represents” .
The historical and emblematic human rights defender and former Sandinista guerrilla, 66, was subjected to a trial without procedural guarantees, according to human rights organizations. But also aggravated by several factors: the hearing was held behind closed doors in El Chipote, the same prison where she is locked up and suffering torture, according to her relatives, who were prevented from entering the trial.
The only ones who had access were Téllez’s lawyers, but they were held incommunicado. According to article 121 of the Criminal Procedure Code, trials must be held at the courthouse and not in prison. However, relatives of prisoners of conscience believe that this secrecy is so that images of the physical and emotional deterioration of the defendants as a result of the mistreatment they have received during confinement are not leaked.
Daniel Ortega Saavedra, the same age as Dora, came to power from 1985 to 1990 and later from 2007 to the present, he has been in power for a total of 27 years, becoming the main dictator of the American continent.
“The permanence of Daniel Ortega as president of Nicaragua would perpetuate impunity for serious human rights violations and crimes under international law committed under his command, Amnesty International said the day before the last general elections. As if this were not enough, in 2018, a report by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts for Nicaragua determined that “the Nicaraguan authorities committed crimes against humanity and that there are elements that lead one to think that they were ordered by the highest authorities”
