Avoiding oversight or controls, to this they attribute the decision of the Daniel Ortega administration to expel the resident delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Thomas Ess. Human rights organizations warn that the regime intends to continue closing the spaces and prevent questioning of its management at all costs; marked by corruption and repression.
Carlos Guadamuz, lawyer member of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective Never Again, in an interview for Nowthe podcast of Article 66, He pointed out that «the dictatorship is not comfortable, it rejects any possibility that implies granting a space that is not controlled by them. In the same way, the dictatorship rejects any expression of oversight, just as the ICRC has a special mandate for Nicaragua.
The defender stressed that the mission of the ICRC is “to provide some accompaniment to political prisoners and that these findings are presented to the State and its recommendations with absolute confidentiality; then not even the dictatorship tolerates that he may receive some kind of recommendation, not even within the framework of discretion, of confidentiality».
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That action by the Ortega-Murillo regime was branded as “reprehensible because it undermines one of the protection mechanisms or the last protection mechanisms, which political prisoners have and who in the context since 2018 have suffered acts of torture.”
Closing control spaces strengthens political control
The human rights defender explained that the measure of the dictatorship to close spaces that supervise the actions of public officials, especially the National Police, is focused on continuing to subject political prisoners to inhumane treatment, torture, medical attention precarious, among other things.
The decision of the Ortega-Murillo regime “is aimed at continuing the instrumentalization of torture, as a form of political control, of social control, since there is no impartial protection mechanism that is observing compliance with international standards for the treatment of persons deprived of liberty”.
Carlos Guadamuz stressed that the closure of non-governmental organizations also strengthens political control over institutions in Nicaragua.
He indicated that the ICRC continues to operate in Nicaragua, however he foresees that after the expulsion of Thomas Ess the situation “could erode and limit the operations of the committee.”
“It is a risk and it is a threat, this threat is latent that they are going to close perhaps the only mechanism that may exist to supervise the treatment of persons deprived of liberty,” he stressed.
“In general, this decision violates the right of the Nicaraguan population, particularly of political prisoners, to be protected against acts of torture due to the absence of limits, due to the absence of control in the framework of treatment of persons deprived of liberty” , he highlighted.
Guadamuz reiterated that since 2007, when Ortega returned to power, the dictator has not allowed national human rights organizations to enter the country’s prisons; Only the Human Rights Ombudsman is authorized to visit those deprived of liberty, as it is an entity controlled by the State.
Therefore, that institution “does not play any control role, it is one more mechanism of repression, it is allowed access and this is worrying, that the International Committee, which may be able to enter the prison systems, is very concerned.”
