Amnesty International (AI) stated this Tuesday that no one is safe in Nicaragua from the “repressive model” imposed by Daniel Ortega’s government, which threatens human rights in an “unprecedented” way.”Repression in Nicaragua leaves no one safe,” said Ana Piquer, AI’s Americas Director, quoted in a statement.
“From indigenous leaders, journalists, human rights defenders, and anyone seen as a risk to government policies, the authorities continue to consolidate the climate of fear where dissent is punished with imprisonment, exile, or disappearance,” she added.
Since the anti-government protests of 2018, which Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, consider a U.S.-promoted coup attempt, hundreds of people “have been unjustly imprisoned” and thousands have been forced into exile, AI stated.At least 300 people died in the protests, according to the UN.
The humanitarian organization urged Ortega’s government to “immediately stop all repressive practices,” guarantee human rights, and end the “criminalization of dissent.” Recently, the NGO Colectivo Nicaragua Nunca Más reported more than 2,000 arbitrary detentions and at least 229 cases of torture of detainees since 2018.
Additionally, Amnesty categorized imprisoned Miskito indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera as a “prisoner of conscience” and demanded his release along with dozens of other detainees. The Mechanism for Recognition of Political Prisoners in Nicaragua currently registers 45 people detained for political reasons in the country.
Since February 2023, Ortega’s government has stripped about 450 politicians, businesspeople, journalists, intellectuals, human rights activists, and religious figures who are exiled or expelled from the country of their Nicaraguan nationality. Amnesty demanded “an end to the practice of arbitrary deprivation of nationality, as well as the full restoration of rights for people stripped of it,” and asked the international community not to remain “indifferent” to the situation in Nicaragua.
Ortega, a 79-year-old former guerrilla who governed Nicaragua in the 1980s and has been back in power since 2007, issued a broad constitutional reform in November that stipulates that “traitors to the homeland” lose their Nicaraguan nationality, a charge with which the vast majority of those expelled from the country were accused.
