The United States on Monday demanded that Nicaragua’s government release relatives of Indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera, who died in prison three months ago. Rivera, a longtime leader of the Miskito people, died on May 30 at the age of 73 after being detained since 2023.
The government of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, showed Rivera hospitalized and in critical condition for the first time just days before his death. About six relatives and other people who traveled to Managua to claim his body were arrested. Their whereabouts have remained unknown ever since, according to human rights groups and Rivera’s exiled daughter, Tininiska Rivera.
“The dictatorship forcibly disappeared Rivera’s relatives and members of his community when they asked for his remains,” and for the “crime” of “trying to mourn his death,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan Pablo Segura. “This is tyranny in its cruelest and most cowardly form. Murillo, Ortega: unconditionally release Brooklyn’s family and all political prisoners,” Segura demanded.
In June, Washington imposed visa restrictions on more than 100 Nicaraguan officials in response to Rivera’s death. He was buried without his relatives present. A network of human rights organizations and prisoners’ relatives counts at least 60 political prisoners in Nicaragua. Of those, 23 remain victims of “enforced disappearance,” including Rivera’s relatives.
Ortega, an 80-year-old former leftist guerrilla, and his wife, who is five years younger, rule with absolute power and maintain tight control over Nicaraguan society. That control has intensified since the 2018 protests, when a government crackdown left about 300 people dead, according to the United Nations, and forced hundreds of thousands into exile.
On September 21, the National Assembly is scheduled to vote on a constitutional reform that would exclude opposition parties from elections despite objections from numerous countries.
