By Salma El-Sakka
United Nations human rights experts said Wednesday that Nicaragua’s co-presidents, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, have established a dictatorship and that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed.”
Dictatorship and repression
The expert group, appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, has been investigating allegations of human rights violations in Nicaragua since April 2018. Chair Jan-Michael Simon told U.N. reporters that the government’s goal is “permanent dynastic rule,” noting that Ortega declared four months ago that Nicaragua would never hold elections again.
Pattern of abuses
The experts documented actions aimed at eliminating opposition through arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, political persecution, and stripping opponents of their citizenship. Since February 2023, at least 452 Nicaraguans considered political opponents have been declared “traitors” and stripped of citizenship, leaving them stateless. Among them are former Sandinista leaders, a former vice president, and all presidential candidates from the 2021 election.
Total control over institutions
Group member Reed Brody said the ruling Sandinista Party has “total control” over the police, courts, and prisons. Under a constitution adopted last year, the legislature and judiciary are no longer independent but controlled by the co-presidents. “There are no opposition parties left, no independent press inside the country, no critical nongovernmental organizations,” Brody said.
Transnational surveillance
A transnational surveillance network also “monitors, intimidates, and attacks the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans” abroad, according to Brody.
Call for international action
The experts urge countries to bring a case against Nicaragua to the International Court of Justice for violating the convention on statelessness. Nicaragua is not a party to the International Criminal Court.
Government rejection
Nicaragua’s government dismissed the Human Rights Council as “manipulated, obsolete and interfering” and accused “neo-colonialist powers” of weaponizing human rights for “political aggression.” The government has previously denied all allegations of human rights abuses.
