Amnesty International (AI) denounced that journalists, human rights defenders and health professionals “continued to face a hostile environment” in 2021 in Nicaragua, and that the regime headed by Sandinista Daniel Ortega “arbitrarily” imprisoned some of them.
In its annual report On the situation of human rights in the world, AI also denounced the “precarious” conditions in which imprisoned opponents are found, the raids on the media and the criminalization of human rights defenders.
“Journalists, human rights defenders and health professionals continued to face a hostile environment. Political activists, human rights defenders and journalists were frequently arbitrarily detained,” the London-based organization noted.
Raid, arrest and exile
In the document, AI recalled that last May the authorities opened an investigation into the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, dedicated to the protection and promotion of freedom of the press and expression, for accusations related to money laundering.
For this case, the authorities are keeping in custody the director of the Foundation, the journalist Cristiana Chamorro, who was sentenced last week to eight years in prison.
Chamorro, vice president of the Board of Directors of the newspaper La Prensa and daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1997), was one of the opposition figures most likely to win the presidential elections on November 7, in which Ortega he was re-elected for his fifth term, fourth in a row and second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with his main contenders in prison.
Likewise, Amnesty International noted that the headquarters of CONFIDENCIAL and the television program “Esta Semana” were raided in May, and that its director, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, was forced into exile again.
“In August, the newspaper La Prensa was raided and its assets were confiscated. His manager (Juan Lorenzo Holmann) was arrested (and found guilty) on charges related to money laundering,” he noted.
Meanwhile, journalists Miguel Mora and Miguel Mendoza were imprisoned in June and sentenced for crimes considered “treason against the country.”
“During the year (2021), the hostile environment and the permanent attacks by the authorities caused several journalists to flee the country,” he warned.
They outlaw NGOs and criminalize defenders
Amnesty International also affirmed that activists and NGOs that defend human rights in Nicaragua continued “facing an extremely hostile environment.”
He noted that last year, the Sandinista-controlled National Assembly outlawed some 45 NGOs, and that “people who defended human rights were criminalized and arbitrarily detained.”
“Human rights defenders suffered police harassment, criminalization, smear campaigns and threats,” he said.
At least two human rights defenders were charged under the Special Cybercrime Law, “and others were reported to have been subjected to acts of harassment, surveillance and threats,” according to the document.
Likewise, Amnesty warned that “arbitrary arrests continued to be part of the government’s repressive strategy” and that until last December 160 people remained in prison “detained exclusively for exercising their rights since the protests began in 2018.”
That entity also collected complaints about the “precarious confinement conditions” in which the incarcerated are found, the mistreatment, the incommunicado regime, and that some of the women detained in 2021 “had been violently arrested, sometimes in front of their children, and remained confined in very precarious conditions.”
In the document, Amnesty also denounced that the indigenous peoples continued to “endure violence”, and that the authorities did not provide “accurate information on the covid-19 pandemic”.
