Miss Universe director is charged with TREASON for ‘plotting to overthrow Nicaragua’s government’ by ‘turning her beauty contests into ‘political traps financed by foreign agents’
Police have accused the director of the Miss Nicaragua pageant of deliberately rigging competitions so that anti-government beauty queens would win as part of a plot to overthrow the government.
Nicaraguan election director Karen Celebertti and her husband and son were accused of conspiring against the government. She allegedly tried to “turn parades into political traps and political ambushes financed by foreign agents.”
It all started on November 18, when 23-year-old Sheynnis Palacios from Nicaragua won the Miss Universe competition, becoming the first Central American to wear the crown.
President Daniel Ortega's government briefly thought it had scored a rare PR victory, calling its victory a moment of “legitimate joy and pride.”
Pageant director Karen Celebertti and her husband and son were charged with conspiring against the government. She tried to 'turn parades into political traps and political ambushes, financed by foreign agents'
It all started on November 18, Nicaraguan Sheynnis Palacios won the Miss Universe competition and became the first Central American to wear the crown
But the tone quickly soured the day after the victory when it emerged that Palacios had posted photos of herself on Facebook taking part in one of the massive anti-government protests in 2018.
The protests were violently suppressed and human rights officials say 355 people were killed by government forces. Ortega claimed the protests were an attempted coup with foreign support aimed at his overthrow.
His opponents said Nicaraguans were protesting his increasingly repressive rule and his seemingly endless drive to retain power.
A statement from the National Police claimed that Celebertti “actively participated, on the internet and in the streets, in the terrorist actions of a failed coup d'état,” an apparent reference to the 2018 protests.
Celebertti apparently slipped through the hands of police after she was denied permission to enter the country a few days ago.
Celebertti, her husband and son are accused of 'treason to the motherland'. They have not spoken publicly about the charges against them.
A statement from the National Police claims that Celebertti “actively participated, on the internet and in the streets, in the terrorist actions of a failed coup d'état,” an apparent reference to the 2018 protests
Celebertti, her husband and son are accused of 'treason to the motherland'. They have not spoken publicly about the charges against them
Just five days after Palacio's victory, Vice President and First Lady Rosario Murillo lashed out at opposition social media sites that celebrated Palacios' victory as a victory for the opposition
She 'maintained contact with the traitors and offered to leverage the franchises, platforms and spaces allegedly used to promote 'innocent' beauty pageants, in a conspiracy orchestrated to turn the competitions into traps and political ambushes , financed by foreign agents,” the statement said.
It didn't help that many ordinary Nicaraguans — who are largely banned from protesting or carrying the national flag at marches — used the Miss Universe victory as a rare opportunity to celebrate in the streets.
Their use of the blue and white national flag, as opposed to Ortega's red and black Sandinista flag, further angered the government, which claimed that the conspirators would “take to the streets again in December, in a repeat of the historic events'. worst chapter of meanness.”
Just five days after Palacio's victory, Vice President and First Lady Rosario Murillo lashed out at opposition social media sites that celebrated Palacios' victory as a victory for the opposition.
“In these days of a new victory, we see malicious, terrorist commentators making a clumsy and insulting attempt to turn what should be a beautiful and well-deserved moment of pride into a destructive coup,” Murillo said.
Ortega's government has seized and closed the Jesuit University of Central America in Nicaragua, which was a hub for protests against the Ortega regime in 2018, along with at least 26 other Nicaraguan universities.
Miss Universe 2022, R'Bonney Gabriel of the US, places the crown on Miss Universe 2023, Sheynnis Palacios, after she won the 72nd edition of the Miss Universe pageant in San Salvador on November 18, 2023
The government has also outlawed or closed more than 3,000 civilian groups and non-governmental organizations, arrested and expelled opponents, stripped them of their citizenship, and confiscated their assets. Thousands have fled into exile.
Palacios, who became the first Nicaraguan to win Miss Universe, has not commented on the situation. She's still in New York.
During the competition, Palacios, 23, said she wants to work on promoting mental health after suffering from debilitating anxiety attacks herself. She also said she wants to work to close the gender pay gap.
But on a now-deleted Facebook account under her name, Palacios posted photos of herself at a protest, writing that she was initially afraid to participate. “I didn't know if I should go, I was afraid of what might happen.”
Some who attended the march that day remember seeing the large, striking Palacios there.