Nicaraguan Journalist Granted Political Asylum in U.S.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Georgina Lupiac

A Nicaraguan journalist and political opponent of President Daniel Ortega, Georgina Lupiac, has been granted political asylum in the United States. Lupiac was able demonstrate to the U.S. Immigration Court that she had in the past been a victim of persecution and that her personal safety would be in danger were she to return to Nicaragua. 

 
Lupiac has been a longtime critic of Daniel Ortega and his ruling party, the Sandanista Front for National Liberation (FSLN). In 1990, she published the book, Debió llamarse libertad, which denounced the Ortega regime. Lupiac was also a radio correspondent for Radio Corporación, a Nicaraguan investigative radio station which has challenged the legitimacy of elections won by the FSLN.
 
In 2008, Lupiac was purportedly threatened at a protest at the Nicaraguan consulate in Miami, where she accused the Ortega regime of electoral fraud. According to a Miami publication, consulate workers denounced Lupiac personally over a loudspeaker and made a threatening reference regarding her children, who still live in Nicaragua.
 
The United States immigration court saw this example, and others that occurred in Nicaragua, as sufficient evidence that Lupiac would be in physical danger if she returned to Nicaragua. By granting political asylum to Lupiac, the court took the position that repressive elements do exist in the Nicaraguan government
                                                                                    -Tyler Schenk-Wasson
 
EE.UU. da Asilo a Periodista Nica (by Judith Flores, La Prensa)
 

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