Miguel Mora
Date of birth: August 20, 1965
Arrested on: June 20, 2021
Current: In exile in the USA since February 2023

Miguel Mora was born on August 20, 1965 in Managua, Nicaragua. In 1995, he founded the independent news channel 100% Noticias, where he is still a director today. On the night of June 20, 2021, Mora was arrested during a police raid on his apartment. He is accused of “committing acts that violated the independence and sovereignty of Nicaragua, called for international interference and called for military intervention.” Mora has since been held in the building of the Directorate of Legal Aid in Managua, which currently holds so many political prisoners that it is known as the “new Chipote prison”. The name is a reference to the notorious El Chipote prison in Managua, where so many prisoners are currently held that no new prisoners can be admitted. Miguel Mora was stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the country in February 2023, along with 221 other prisoners critical of the government. He has been in exile in the USA ever since.

Arrest and conditions of detention

The journalist and presidential candidate of the Democratic Restoration Party (PRD) was arrested at around 11:00 p.m. on June 20, 2021, at his home, where he was staying with his wife Verónica Chávez and their 21-year-old son, Miguel Alejandro Mora.

No concrete charges were made when Mora was arrested. The police only told him that he was accused of “disrupting Nicaragua’s independence and bringing about political and military interventions.” Later, it became known that the Nicaraguan judiciary is also investigating him for “organizing terrorist attacks involving foreign investments, managing economic blockades, imposing sanctions on Nicaragua and violating the main interests of the country.” The evidence here is the statements of four police officers, an interview he gave to the media, and posts that Mora published on social media.

During his detention, Mora’s family was only allowed to visit him twice in four months. Since his arrest, he has also lost 11 kilos. When his wife and son contracted COVID-19 in September 2021 and had to be treated in hospital for a month due to complications, Mora was not allowed to visit or contact them there.

Previous arrests

When protests broke out in Nicaragua in 2018 and the government of Daniel Ortega responded with repression, 100% Noticias reported on the attacks by the police and the violence of the state against civil society. Mora was arrested for the first time on December 21, 2018, for alleged “incitement to hatred, conspiracy and terrorism”. The premises of 100% Noticias were searched and Mora was held in prison for 172 days. He was only released thanks to an amnesty law passed by the National Assembly in 2019.

Background

Miguel Mora with his wife, journalist Verónica Chávez and their son Miguel Alejandro © Articulo66

Miguel Mora grew up in modest circumstances. His parents worked as clothes washers, kitchen workers and street vendors. His grandfather’s love of radio journalism sparked Mora’s interest in writing. With the help of a scholarship, he came to the Instituto Loyola and began his journalism studies at the Central American University in Managua in 1989. In 1995, he founded his own journalistic project, 100% Noticias, by asking then-President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro for a 15-minute slot for an independent news broadcast on a state-owned broadcaster. Thanks to this start-up aid, 100% Noticias quickly became very well known and developed into an independent, independent news channel.

After his arrest in 2018 and after more than five months of political imprisonment, he decided to become politically active himself and ran for the presidential elections in Nicaragua in 2021.

Mora is responsible for looking after his son Miguel Alejandro, who has a learning disability and a physical disability. Due to Mora’s arrest, Miguel Alejandro loses his caregiver. Mora’s wife Verónica now has to take care of her son alone, which is another burden for her in addition to the imprisonment of her husband.
As of: August 2024