Where waving the flag is now banned

ElFaro.net (El Salvador)

Nicaraguan authorities have concocted a preposterous story to justify eight months of repression, said Sergio Ramírez. In April, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans took to the streets of Managua to protest President Daniel Ortega’s plan to cut pensions and hike social security contributions. That movement morphed into a broader protest against Ortega after security forces launched a brutal crackdown on the opposition, killing more than 300 people to date. The anti-regime protests still rage weekly, some smaller, some larger. Experts from the United Nations and the Organization of American States say Nicaraguan authorities have conducted “crimes against humanity, including murders and arbitrary

arrests.” Ortega, though, “has invented an alternative truth.” In his telling, the protests amount to a slow-moving coup. Nicaragua, in this fantasy, has been overrun by “thousands of terrorists in the streets, determined to undermine democracy.” So, in the name of protecting democracy, Ortega has shut down civil society groups, arrested journalists, and impounded newsprint and TV news equipment. He has not only banned the display of the blue-and-white Nicaraguan flag, which has “become a subversive symbol,” but he’s also forbidden people from carrying blue and white balloons. Isn’t it obvious what has happened? “The real coup d’état has been against the citizens.”