UNITED NATIONS — United Nations human rights experts said on Wednesday that Nicaragua's co-presidents have established a dictatorship and that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed”, the Associated Press reported. The expert group, mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, has investigated allegations of human rights violations and abuses in Nicaragua since April 2018 — charges the government denies.

Source: Associated Press via Internewscast

“Nicaragua is not only facing a human rights situation or crisis. What we are looking at is a full dictatorship, and that dictatorship has one clear goal: permanent dynastic rule,” Jan-Michael Simon, chair of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, told reporters at UN Headquarters, in remarks recorded by UN Media. “Arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, political persecution, the stripping of nationality — these are not goals in themselves. They are tools. Tools designed to remove every obstacle, real or imagined, so that power stays permanently in the hands of one family: Ortega-Murillo,” Simon said. He added: “Four months ago, Daniel Ortega said it loud — Nicaragua will never hold elections again.”

Source: UN Media (UNifeed)

Fellow group member Reed Brody told the briefing that since February 2023 at least 452 Nicaraguans considered political opponents — including former Sandinista leaders, a former vice president and all the presidential candidates from 2021 — have been declared traitors to the homeland and arbitrarily stripped of their nationality, rendering them stateless; most were expelled if they were in the country and their properties were confiscated. Brody described “an extensive transnational surveillance network and intelligence architecture” monitoring and intimidating Nicaraguans abroad, said the group has published the names of 56 Nicaraguan officials it believes are involved, and added: “There is no court or prosecutor left to hold anyone to account, so justice has to come from the outside.”

The experts presented their latest findings to the UN General Assembly's Third Committee in New York on Monday and held the press conference on Wednesday, 28 October. Simon called on member states not to allow the situation to become normalised and urged states to stand with Nicaragua's neighbouring countries, which he said are directly confronting the human rights consequences of the regime.

Nicaragua responded by calling the Human Rights Council “manipulated, obsolete and interfering”, and accused “neo-colonialist powers” of weaponising human rights for “political aggression”, the AP reported. Nicaragua has withdrawn from the Council.

Background

Ortega and Murillo have remained in power since mass protests in 2018 triggered a government crackdown that killed hundreds of people. Ortega declared victory in the 2021 election — a vote widely viewed by the international community as illegitimate — after jailing all the candidates who might have defeated him, and the United States does not recognise Ortega's presidency, the AP reported.