A group of UN experts accused the Nicaraguan government of exponentially increasing
human rights violations
in the last year, presenting a report this Thursday that calls for strengthening international sanctions against Managua.
The Human Rights Group's report on Nicaragua states that President Daniel Ortega's government perpetrates
"abuses and crimes"
to "eliminate all critical voices and dissuade, in the long term, any new organization and social mobilization initiative."
"The government of Nicaragua continues to perpetrate serious systematic violations of human rights,
equivalent to crimes against humanity,
for political reasons," the group declared, reiterating expressions from the report presented a year ago.
However,
"the situation has worsened"
in the last year due to the "consolidation and centralization of all powers and institutions of the State", especially the judicial power, in the hands of Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, he adds. .
"During 2023 there has been an exponential increase in patterns of violations focused on incapacitating any type of opposition in the long term," according to the document.
"President Ortega, Vice President Murillo and the high-level officials identified in the investigation
must be held accountable to the international community,"
said the president of the think tank, Jan Simon.
A mural of the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, in Managua, in an archive image.
Photo: AP
The group of experts is independent and was created in 2022 by mandate of the UN Human Rights Council to investigate abuses committed in Nicaragua since April 2018, when protests broke out against the Ortega government, whose repression left 355 dead and hundreds detained. (opponents, social leaders, businessmen, journalists).
"More subtle" repression
The report highlights that the repression of all real or imaginary opposition "has become more subtle", and targets in particular "university students, indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant peoples, peasants and members of the Catholic Church and other Christian confessions."
On February 9, 2023, the Ortega government released 222 political prisoners, expelled them to the United States and stripped them of their nationality, accusing them of "traitors to the country."
A week later, he withdrew the nationality of 94 dissidents in exile, among them the writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli.
A week ago, Ortega justified the stripping of the nationality of these 316 Nicaraguans that he sent into exile, accusing them of "traitors" and "selling the country."
A bishop, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, was also imprisoned and stripped of his nationality in 2023, but preferred prison to exile.
Last January he was released from prison, along with 16 other priests and two seminarians, and sent to Rome under an agreement with the Vatican.
A march in Managua to defend the bishops and Catholic entities persecuted by the Daniel Ortega regime.
Photo: AP
Likewise, more than 3,500 independent organizations, many of them religious, have been closed in Nicaragua since 2018 and their assets have passed into the hands of the State.
Catholic universities, the Red Cross and the Boy Scouts association have suffered the same fate.
"The government has consolidated a spiral of silence that incapacitates any potential opposition," Simon said.
"Boys and girls violated"
The report maintains that "boys and girls have been violated" by the activities and opinions of their parents or relatives, and "deportations and prohibitions on entry to Nicaragua have resulted in the separation" of many families.
"The centralization of power not only guarantees impunity for perpetrators, but also undermines efforts to achieve accountability. The government has ensured that it remains in an increasingly solid bubble to perpetuate itself in power," said the expert Ariela Peralta.
Furthermore, "the persecution extends beyond the borders of Nicaragua, given the effects of the deprivation of their nationality and legal personality, the lack of access to official documentation and consular support," said expert Ángela Buitrago.
"
The effect on the Nicaraguan population is devastating.
It will take a significant amount of time and resources for the people of Nicaragua and the international community to recover everything lost," said Simon.
Ortega, 78 years old and in power since 2007 and
successively re-elected in disputed elections
, faces a wave of condemnation from the international community due to his authoritarian drift.
The group urged the international community "to take immediate action, in particular by expanding sanctions against individuals and institutions involved in human rights violations."
Source: AFP
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