Oswaldo Isabel Canizales (pictured bottom) refused to sit on the flat bed of a police pickup truck after he was arrested. Photo / Facebook
Oswaldo Isabel Canizales (pictured bottom) refused to sit on the flat bed of a police pickup truck after he was arrested. Photo / Facebook
A Nicaraguan man riding his motorcycle with his daughter was abruptly arrested, handcuffed to the back of the police pickup truck and dragged through the streets Thursday.
Oswaldo Isabel Canizales was running errands around town when about 10 agents with Nicaragua's National Police force in Jinotepe stopped him in broaddaylight.
Canizales claimed the officers were looking into taking him to the local precinct for questioning, but he resisted hopping aboard the truck's flat bed.
Instead, they dragged him along the street, his body hanging from the right side of the vehicle, and his feet scrapping the pavement for about three blocks.
It was all captured on video recorded by his unnamed frightened daughter, 27, who screamed: "Look how my father is being dragged. Just look how he's being dragged."
Nicaragua has been embroiled in a socio-economical crisis since April due to cuts to the country's social security system imposed by President Daniel Ortega.
More than 2,000 people have arrested in nearly four months of unrest and official crackdown.
At least 400 people are believed to still be held in jails, prisons and police stations across the country and some consider them to be political prisoners, according to the non-governmental Nicaraguan Human Rights Center.
Oswaldo Isabel Canizales (pictured bottom) refused to sit on the flat bed of a police pickup truck after he was arrested. Photo / Facebook
It's also been normal for police agents and paramilitary members to raid homes and proceed with arbitrary arrests, as was the case with Canizales' two sons.
Canizales, who suffered bruising during the incident, was freed. He told various news outlets in the troubled Central American country that son Vidal Jose, 26, had been in police custody since the end of July, accused by authorities of being involved in organized criminal activities.
They also claimed that Oswaldo's son had participated in aggravated assault, public disturbance, torture and kidnapping of three Sandinistas military officers and workers from the mayor's office.
Canizales also added that his son Jeison Antonio, 22, has been missing over a month after paramilitary forces raided the town. Canizales believes Jeison Antonio was detained by officers.
"I don't support this anymore. I don't even know which human rights institution to go to and ask for protection," he said.
Canizales does think the police officers wanted to give him a hard time for constantly visiting the police command station to get updates on their conditions.
