- Name: Samantha Padilla Jirón
- Position: Human Rights activist
- Deprived of liberty from: November 8th, 2021
- Judgment: Sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment
- Country: Nicaragua
- Place of confinement: Women’s Prison System ”La Esperanza”
- Health condition: Tension problems
- Torture complaint: None
Samantha Padilla Jirón, de 22 años, es la presa política mas joven de Nicaragua. She is an activist, feminist, artist and member of the opposition Blue and White National Unit.
She was awarded a scholarship by the Solidarity Mentors program of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation to study secondary school at a private school, at the same time she was part of the Meritorious Masaya Fire Department.
During the 2018 protests, she joined the medical posts to help the wounded, for which she received threats from the regime, forcing her to go into exile in Costa Rica.
She returned to Nicaragua in 2020, outraged by the abuses committed by the regime, to join the UNAB and via social networks denounce the violations committed by this regime and ask for the freedom of political prisoners.
She was detained on November 8, 2021 on a street in Managua by plainclothes police, without an arrest warrant. She was working with Félix Maradiaga, who was one of the seven opposition candidates for the Presidency of Nicaragua arrested during the last electoral process.
She currently receives differentiated treatment in the prison in which she is located. They do not allow her to go out to the patio and they control what she may or may not have in her cell. She is having tension problems, to the point of having tremors in her hands.
Sponsors
Name : Maite Pagazaurtundúa
Position: Member of the European Parliament
Observations
Maite Pagazaurtundúa is a Spanish politician, activist and writer. She is currently a Member of the European Parliament for the Spanish political party Ciudadanos, in the Renew Group. She is vice-president of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and a member of the Committees on Constitutional Affairs and the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in All Democratic Processes of the European Union, in particular Disinformation. She is also a member of the Conference on the Future of Europe. She was previously President of the Victims of Terrorism Foundation in Spain. She has been defending freedom, justice and equality for decades.
She has participated in different social movements and initiatives for freedom both in Spain and in other countries. She has spent dozens of years fighting terrorism, hate speech and mandatory nationalism. The cost of her public positioning on the front line against terrorists meant a high degree of harassment, threats and aggressions of physical and symbolic violence, being forced to live under police escort for 13 years and to leave her place of residence to move, with her family, outside the Basque Country.
Her activity has been recognized with multiple awards such as the Sakharov Prize for Human Rights in 2000 – as a founding member of ¡Basta Ya! – or the Medal of the Order of Constitutional Merit in 2003. In 2005 she was part of a collective candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize
