The government of Daniel Ortega “is systematically attacking the university sector” in Nicaragua with a “repressive campaign” aimed at silencing critical voices, a United Nations Group of Experts denounced this Friday.
“The Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua has documented extensive human rights violations against students, teachers and other university staff” with the intention of “suppressing dissent and freedom of expression,” says the report published by the UN.
Students and teachers have suffered “physical and psychological violence, including threats, intimidation, beatings and prolonged isolation” since anti-government protests in 2018, which left at least 300 dead, according to the UN.
The university sector was then the main promoter of the demonstrations that lasted for several months, and which Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, consider an attempted coup d’état promoted by the United States.
Since then, the Nicaraguan government “has directly attacked universities as part of a widespread repressive campaign, eliminating their autonomy and turning them into centers of political control,” said the president of the Group of Experts, Jan Simon, in the statement.
Related news: Nicaraguan educational system, postponed. Students are not learning to read or write
The Group’s report highlights the “arbitrary expulsion of students and teachers critical of the authorities.”
In addition, the report mentions the “closure of multiple universities” and in those that remain open “the government has instituted political control measures, imposing restrictions on academic and research freedom and limiting access to education” for critics or dissidents.
In August 2023, the Ortega government confiscated the Central American University (UCA), belonging to the Society of Jesus, whose students were the most combative during the 2018 protests. It was accused of being a “center of terrorism” and on its campus Now a public university operates.
The Group of Experts called for “international action to protect the integrity” of students, teachers and professionals in the sector in the face of this “pattern of violence and repression designed to stifle” criticism against the government.
This panel is an independent body mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, created in March 2022.
