The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship tries to make the United Nations (UN) believe that in Nicaragua the human, economic, labor, women’s, and indigenous people’s rights are respected and promoted and even affirms that it fights against illegal migration and guarantees the right to public freedoms such as free expression and transparent elections.
In a report presented to the UN to be analyzed within the framework of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), of the Human Rights Council (HRC), in its 47th session to be held in Geneva between the fourth and the On November 15, the dictatorship makes false and distorted statements, as criticized by human rights organizations such as the Nicaragua Never Again Collective and Open Urns (UA), both in exile.
“The report presented by the State (of Nicaragua) does not reflect at all the situation of the country and rather describes a parallel reality that hides the serious violations of human rights that have occurred particularly between 2019 and 2024, and also provides false information and imprecise on other relevant issues,” says Olga Valle, director of Urnas Abiertas.
The lies of the dictatorship and the truth of repression
Article 66, After analyzing the report presented by Nicaragua and comparing the dictatorship’s statements with the reports of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the Group of Experts on Nicaragua, also of the United Nations (Ghren), It details the lies of the dictatorship before the UN and the truths of the repression experienced by the people of Nicaragua.
In the dictatorship’s report for the EPU, presented on September 2, the regime’s propaganda machinery affirms that the Government, headed by dictators Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo “continues to work for peace, stability, the common good “, justice, constitutional and social order, human rights of all”
What the dictatorship tries to hide in the introduction of its “report” is what happened in the country between 2019 and 2024 and which has been documented by international human rights organizations. The repression and violations of the human rights of Nicaraguans escalated to unprecedented levels, mainly due to the number of political prisoners that exceeded 300 opponents imprisoned simultaneously, dispossession of nationalities, banishments, confiscations, annulment of NGOs and the war unleashed by the dictators. against religion.
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As for the economic rightsthe regime claims to “promote and energize trade”, and develop a “national plan to combat poverty and for human development”, likewise, they maintain that they direct the country’s resources towards “the consolidation of macroeconomic stability, the economic growth.
There is nothing more false than that statement, since the dictatorship tries to hide that in Nicaragua unemployment is growing, informal employment is increasing and the national economy depends more and more every day on the remittances sent by Nicaraguans who have been forced to emigrate in search of of better job opportunities.
According to data from the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN), $4,660.1 million in family remittances entered the country in 2023, which represented a new record. Remittances were 40.5% more than in 2022, of which 3,563 million came from the United States.
Official figures indicate that by 2023, dollars sent by Nicaraguan migrants and exiles represented 26.1% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Labor rights and family rights
In regards to the labor rights of the Nicaraguan population, the dictatorship lies through its mouth, stating that “the State, through the Ministry of Labor (Mitrab), implements labor policies for social development, promotes and restores labor rights, through actions to protect the working population.” ».
In reality, the regime is silent about the reforms to the Labor Law carried out in November of last year with which it stripped all State workers of their right to decent compensation for years worked. After the reform, public employees in order to receive one month’s salary as compensation must serve the Government between 3 and 10 years, up to 15 years in the service of the State to receive two months’ salary and up to 20 years for 3 months.
The State Lie also tries to hide that the lowest minimum wage in Central America is that of Nicaragua and that, like any dictatorship, which controls all State institutions where no one other than the tyrants has decision-making power, no employee wins a labor lawsuit against the Government.
Likewise, they lie when they say that they respect the labor rights of Nicaraguans when in reality they are carrying out a sweep of all institutions under the protection of a so-called state reorganization strategy that has so far sent at least 6 thousand to the streets, according to journalistic reports. state employees.
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Family rights; boys, girls and adolescents: It is one of the most controversial issues in which the dictatorship openly lies to the UN. The report highlights the Family Code, and says that it is aimed at “the promotion, protection and restitution of rights of families, girls, boys, adolescents, young people and older adults, being a broad and specialized legal framework.”
The dictatorship tries to hide the violations of children’s rights perpetrated by them by forcibly separating dozens of minors from their parents and even preventing family reunification once the parents have been banished.
The Ortega-Murillo tyranny has stripped more than 450 Nicaraguans of their nationality and erased them from public records. Many of those stripped of their nationality are mothers of minors whose fathers are removed from the records of the people and are left in legal limbo because they have no father, according to the dictatorship, and therefore, no surnames either.
The UN itself, in its report on the situation in Nicaragua in February 2024, states that “boys and girls have been violated due to their parental relationship or the activities and/or opinions expressed by their parents or family members.” Deportations and entry bans into Nicaragua have resulted in the separation of several children from their parents. “Several of them have been denied the issuance of valid passports to join their parents abroad.”
The regime affirms that the country has an “early warning system for the prevention of violence against children and adolescents and” special attention and access to justice is guaranteed to those who require it.
Children’s advocacy organizations and international organizations say the opposite. The dictatorship wants to hide the fact that Nicaragua is the country with the highest adolescent birth rate in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 85.6 cases per 1,000 adolescents, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), updated to 2022.
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Right to education: According to the Ortega-Murillos, “the State continues to advance in guaranteeing the right to free, comprehensive, inclusive, multicultural and quality education.”
What the dictatorship hides is the questioning of the poor quality of primary and secondary education in the country. As of 2021, Nicaragua was considered a country with an educational quality “below the average of the region in Sciences, Mathematics and Reading”, according to the results of the Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (ERCE) of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) that urged the Central American country to develop an efficient educational plan.
In higher education, the dictatorship intends to hide the confiscation of at least 30 universities, most of which were awarded to the State where they have now hired teachers without the required qualifications and the rigors of admission and promotion have disappeared.
Women’s rights: Ortega and Murillo tell the UN that their regime maintains a “model of equity and complementarity in all spaces of participation, which includes policies and strategic guidelines with a gender and human rights focus.”
The regime boasts that “the political participation of women is represented by 59% in the Executive Branch, 60% in the Electoral Branch, 55% in the Legislative Branch, 60% in the Superior Council of the Comptroller General of the Republic , 50% before the Central American Parliament and 54% in Municipal Mayors.
What the tyrants’ report does not say is that in reality in Nicaragua, the only woman who has decision-making power is the vice-dictator Rosario Murillo and the rest of the women in state institutions play a decorative and submissive role, since none of them have the power of decision. decision.
Right to property and restoration of property of indigenous peoples: The Nicaraguan dictatorship tries to impose the lie that they respect the right to private property in the country when in reality they have confiscated the assets of more than 5 thousand NGOs, and the properties of more than 450 denationalized and exiled Nicaraguans. They recently revived the old “Absentee Law” applied in 1979, to steal the priorities of political adversaries, supposedly “abandoned” because they could be used to attack security, when in reality it is a confiscation.
The Ortega-Murillo regime lies, stating that “thefight against human trafficking and rights of irregular migrants“, when in reality it is the only country in the region that promotes irregular migration and takes advantage of it, charging “tolls” to migrants to allow them to pass through the territory.
The US administration has accused the Managua regime of promoting irregular migration and taking advantage of migrants.
An investigation by the English network BBC states that, from May 2022 to May 2023, at least 1,200 privately contracted flights landed in Managua to transport “passengers” who were directly en route to the southern border with the United States.” At least 300,000 migrants would have passed through Nicaragua, with the permission of the dictatorship to go to the United States between 2023 and so far in 2024.
And they close the report by assuring that in Nicaragua the right to freedom of expression and organization. The dictatorship cynically affirms that “Civil Society organizations can carry out their work, adhering to their internal statutes, without violating the national legal system. Likewise, the independence and pluralism of the media is respected, in accordance with the provisions of the Political Constitution.
