Nicaragua’s regime-aligned Congress approved a law Tuesday empowering domestic courts to pass rulings against people and entities abroad that are found to promote sanctions against the internationally criticized government.
The reform can see prison sentences of up to 30 years imposed for the crime of “undermining national integrity.” The courts in Nicaragua are also viewed as loyal to President Daniel Ortega’s regime, which has shuttered almost 5,500 NGOs since protests against him in 2018 were met with a crackdown the United Nations said left more than 300 people dead.
The Central American nation has jailed hundreds of critics, real and perceived, in the past six years. Ortega, a 78-year-old former guerrilla, considers the 2018 protests an attempted coup promoted by the United States and backed by the religious community.
His government is under US and European Union sanctions. The new law applies to Nicaraguans and foreigners — individuals, companies and NGOs — and makes provision for the confiscation of assets, though it was not made clear how such judgments would be carried out on foreign soil.
The government says the aim is to combat “transnational organized crime.” The law’s passage came as the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva reported a rise in cases of arbitrary detentions, intimidation of government opponents, ill-treatment in custody and attacks against Indigenous peoples.
“The human rights situation in Nicaragua has seriously deteriorated since last year,” it said in a statement. Regarding the law, HRW expressed concern it may be used “to further pressure and intimidate exiled citizens and foreigners for the legitimate exercise of their right to freedom of expression, and other rights.”
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk urged the government to immediately release “all those arbitrarily detained,” end torture and persecution, “and reinstating previously held legal status for civil society organizations and opposition parties.”
Nicaragua’s opposition movement, most of its members in exile in Costa Rica, the United States and Spain, said the new law would help Ortega extend “his repressive reach internationally.”
“It allows the regime to prosecute anyone, whether in Nicaragua or not, and without their presence at trial,” in order to silence opponents “at the international level,” exiled former presidential candidate Felix Maradiaga said.
