The Diplomat
The Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (RAE) yesterday issued a statement expressing its protest against the arrest warrant issued by the regime of Daniel Ortega against the Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez, winner of the 2017 Cervantes Prize.
In its communiqué, the RAE denounces “in the strongest terms” the persecution represented by “the arrest warrant issued by the Nicaraguan prosecutor’s office against the Nicaraguan academic, corresponding member of the RAE and writer Sergio Ramírez, one of the most lucid thinkers and writers in the Spanish-speaking world, winner of the Cervantes Prize and a courageous fighter for freedom in his country”.
The RAE demands the “immediate lifting” of the measures taken against Sergio Ramírez, who also has Spanish nationality.
The RAE also defends “the freedoms of thought and expression as the first values of any system of coexistence” and regrets “the serious attempt to curtail them in order to prevent free debate on opinions and ideas”. Words,” the communiqué states, “must be used freely by all; preventing the free expression of all kinds of opinions, especially those of a political nature, is the most intolerable form of arbitrary exercise of power because it leads to the oppression of citizens for the exclusive benefit of those in power.
The institution indicates that it is open to adhesions from other cultural institutions and reports that, so far, 12 other language academies have joined, namely those of Ecuador, Mexico, El Salvador, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Puerto Rico and the North American Academy of the Spanish Language.
Nicaragua’s prosecutor’s office on Wednesday called for the arrest of Sergio Ramírez, who it accuses of carrying out “acts that encourage and incite hatred and violence”, after the writer has on several occasions been highly critical of Daniel Ortega, and in a context in which the regime of the president and his wife, Rosario Murillo, is imprisoning opponents and critical journalists in the run-up to the presidential elections in November.
Ramírez, 79, was Nicaragua’s vice president under Ortega’s first Sandinista government from 1985 to 1990, but subsequently broke with him and has been one of his main detractors. He is currently out of the country.
Last Friday, the Popular Parliamentary Group presented a proposal for the Congress of Deputies to adopt an institutional declaration condemning the repression in Nicaragua and the arrest warrant issued against Ramírez.
In the text sent by the PP’s deputy spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Pablo Hispán, to the president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lower House, the Socialist Pau Marí Klose, it is requested that Ortega be asked to put an end to all hostilities against the writer, as well as “the immediate release of all political prisoners and respect for human rights in Nicaragua”.
In addition, the Popular Party recalls that the Ortega regime has the support of Unidas Podemos, so they hope that “the PSOE will not allow itself to be dragged once again by the communists in government” and accept the proposed text.
On social networks, popular leaders are highlighting the lack of pronouncements by the government on the harassment of Sergio Ramírez.
In previous weeks, the government has expressed its criticism of the arrests of opponents and journalists, and on 11 August, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, summoned the Spanish ambassador in Managua, Mar Fernández-Palacios, for consultations in response to a harsh communiqué from the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry, in which Spain’s interference was denounced and the GAL and Catalonia were used to criticise the government.
