The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and the Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective Never Again applauded this Tuesday the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the humanitarian crisis that the Central American country lives, and they asked for actions from the global organization.
Human rights organizations confirmed the disappearance of more than 1,500 NGOs, the closure of more than 20 radio and television stations -most of them Catholic-, as well as the exile of more than 200,000 Nicaraguans, including at least 150 journalists, as a product of the crisis indicated in the report of the High Commissioner presented this Tuesday in Geneva.
On this basis, the humanitarian NGOs in Nicaragua asked the United Nations (UN) for actions to reverse the situation, especially in the case of more than 200 opponents and critics of President Daniel Ortega considered “political prisoners.”
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“We ask the Council to urge the State of Nicaragua to allow the entry of human rights protection mechanisms, and specifically the United Nations Group of Experts to corroborate the unfortunate state of more than 200 political prisoners and demand their immediate release” , said the representative of Cenidh and FIDH before the interactive dialogue on the case of Nicaragua at the UN, Vilma Núñez.
Núñez emphasized the arrest of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, whom the Cenidh considers “disappeared”, since the Ortega government has not provided evidence that he is indeed under a “house by jail” regime in Managua.
“We join the requests, the recommendations, established by the High Commissioner, regarding that Nicaragua must collaborate with international mechanisms, such as the Group of Experts, or accountability for Nicaragua, the same Acnudh, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR)”, said, for his part, the lawyer of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective Never Again, Braulio Abarca.
For its part, the Government of Cuba showed its support for that of Nicaragua.
“We ratify our unrestricted support for the Sandinista government and the people of Nicaragua, in the face of continuous hostile actions against them, including those carried out in the name of human rights,” the Cuban embassy in Managua said on its Twitter account.
Since April 2018, Nicaragua has been experiencing a sociopolitical crisis that in its first year left at least 355 dead, according to the IACHR, and which worsened last November with the elections in which Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, were re-elected in their charges, with seven of their potential rivals in prison and two in exile.
