From our Latrine American Triangle of Doom Bureau with some assistance from our Cubanization of Nicaragua Bureau
Dictator Daniel Ortega has been following the Castro, Inc. playbook a bit more intensely lately, speeding up the process of the Cubanization of Nicaragua. His latest move is to call for laws that allow for mass confiscations of private property and the persecution of dissidents beyond Nicaragua’s borders.
In other words, Ortega is doing exactly what Castro, Inc. did decades ago and continues to do to this day. Remember the “list of terrorists” living in the U.S. published by Castro, Inc. last December, which included the most prominent exiled critics of the island’s dictatorship?
From Havana Times
A proposal to reform Nicaragua’s Penal Code, sent by Daniel Ortega to the National Assembly, aims to prosecute Nicaraguans and foreigners for alleged crimes committed outside the country and punish them with penalties ranging from the confiscation of their property to life imprisonment.
With these reforms, the Ortega regime seeks to impose a form of “transnational repression,” warn opposition politicians. They also highlight the indiscriminate application of penalties such as property confiscation and life imprisonment, which the Constitution only authorized for cases of extreme severity.
The initiative, which seeks to modify 27 articles in the Penal Code, was referred to the Justice and Legal Affairs Commission of the National Assembly and is expected to be approved on September 3rd.
Among the proposed changes by Ortega are modifications to Article 16 of the Penal Code concerning the “principle of universality.” This article establishes that Nicaraguan criminal laws will also apply to Nicaraguans or foreigners who, while outside the national territory, have committed crimes such as money laundering, terrorism, and its financing.
Additionally, Article 16 will include crimes such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their financing, organized crime, cybercrime, and any crime against public administration.
The penalties for these crimes, according to the initiative, range from imprisonment, asset forfeiture, and fines. In cases of imprisonment for serious crimes, the penalties will include up to life imprisonment.
In his explanatory statement, Ortega argued that the commission of some of these crimes not only affects individual citizens but also the Nicaraguan community, “when such actions attack the goods and services intended to ensure the tranquility and well-being of the community.”
However, most of these crimes, which the regime intends to punish extraterritorially, have been used in recent years to persecute and prosecute opponents of the Ortega-Murillo regime, as well as to strip legal status and confiscate the assets of about 5,500 civil society organizations, associations and foundations.
Continue reading HERE