The cancellation of the legal personality of the Permanent Commission of Human rights (CPDH), on April 20, and the forced exile of its directors, Marcos Carmona and Denis Darce, are the latest chapter in a series of persecutions that human rights defenders are experiencing in Nicaragua. A country that since 2018 has been in a sociopolitical and human rights crisis that has left at least 355 killed, hundreds wounded and a thousand political prisoners, 180 of them still remain in jail, but the defenders resist the onslaught.
The regime of Daniel Ortega has closed the humanitarian NGOs in the country and has forced dozens of defenders into exile to avoid being imprisoned for their work, as happened to the lawyer Mary Oviedo, of the CPDH, who has been sentenced by the Ortega justice on two occasions. In August 2019, when she was found guilty of alleged obstruction of duties and sentenced to 30 days in jail; and in February 2022, she was found guilty of the alleged crime of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity” and sentenced to eight years in prison. The defender has been detained since on July 29, 2021.
Ortega also expelled international human rights organizations from the national territory, such as the Special Follow-up Mechanism for Nicaragua (Meseni), the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Office of the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Human Rights (OACNUDH). Even the head of mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Thomas Ess, and the apostolic nuncio, Waldemar Sommertag, They were expelled last March.
For Vilma Núñez, president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) —the first humanitarian organization canceled and confiscated in December 2018— the persecution of human rights defenders is part of a strategy of the regime “to sow terror at times most critical of the repression”.
In 2018, the Cenidh “was the organization that was marking the complaint from the perspective of human rights at the national and international level,” said Núñez. So, for the regime “it was essential to silence that voice, because it was the moment it had to sow terror. And to some extent he succeeded.”
After the cancellation and confiscation of the Cenidh, the regime continued with a series of threats against defenders, forcing them into exile to preserve their freedom.
Avoid documentation and systematization
Carlos Guadamuz, from Human Rights Collective Nicaragua Never+ —founded in 2019 in Costa Rica by exiled Nicaraguan defenders—opined that the cancellation of the humanitarian NGOs in Nicaragua is due to “a real interest (of the regime) to suppress the documentation and systematization” of the human rights violations that have been committed. and continue to be committed in the country.
Likewise, the threats, persecution and imprisonment suffered by human rights defenders are “a true tragedy,” warned Guadamuz. This situation “limits the political rights” of both defenders and citizens and “The only public policy that is observed (in all this) is to keep Ortega in power,” added the defender.
The executive secretary of the CPDH, Mark Carmonapointed out at a press conference —after the cancellation of his NGO— that the attack against the defenders is due to the fact that “there is no will, on the part of the Government, that there are human rights organizations that are documenting the abuses that are committed in this country”.
Carmona maintained that the measure affects all the people of Nicaragua, because “in some way the CPDH was the only institution that we were (legally) to document the arbitrariness and abuses that are committed by the different powers of the State and by the different officials. ”.
Other humanitarian organizations canceled by the regime are the Center for Justice and Human Rights of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (Cejudhcan) and the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH).
Defense continues without personality
Despite the cancellation of legal status, defenders continue their work denouncing human rights violations against Nicaraguans. While the Cenidh performs remote work; the Nicaragua Nunca+ Human Rights Collective operates from San José, Costa Rica; and the CPDH in its office in Miami, United States.
“If it affects the fact that we do not have an office, that we are persecuted with a terrible, slanderous and infamous campaign of personal destruction, accusing us of any criminal conduct,” said Núñez. But that does not mean that with the closure of the organization the defense of human rights is over, “we continue,” he pointed out.
The defender stressed that in the context of repression in Nicaragua, “what remains for us is public denunciation as a mechanism for defending human rights so that everyone knows, so that everyone becomes aware of the situation.” She also, she valued, you can take steps before international protection mechanisms such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the Inter-American Court, the Office of the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Human Rights (OACNUDH) and the UN Human Rights Council.
