The United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture (SPT) reported this Wednesday, November 23, the suspension of its plan to visit Nicaragua scheduled for 2023, due to lack of cooperation from the Daniel Ortega administration and Rosario Murillo to allow experts to enter the country.
Suzanne Jabbour, chair of the SPT, indicated that “it is extremely regrettable that Nicaragua has refused to cooperate with the SPT to carry out our second visit to the country to assess the implementation of the recommendations made after our first visit eight years ago.”
The UN body visited Nicaragua for the first time in 2014 and presented a report with recommendations to the authorities that “the State has kept confidential.”
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In addition, Jabbour highlighted that “the Subcommittee has made more than 80 visits during its 15 years of operation, and this is the first time that we have encountered such a widespread refusal to cooperate. Bearing in mind that States parties have a legal obligation to receive any SPT delegation, we raise this serious matter with the Committee against Torture according to the appropriate procedure.”
He also explained that the Ortega administration ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) in 2009 and “therefore agreed to establish an independent National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) and support SPT monitoring of its detention facilities.”
The Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture is in charge of visiting the different detention centers around the world with the aim of providing recommendations to the authorities so that they establish effective measures against torture and other ill-treatment of persons deprived of liberty.
The refusal of the Ortega and Murillo regime to allow UN experts to enter the country occurs in a context where the relatives of political prisoners, political and human rights organizations have denounced that the hostages of the dictatorship are subjected to treatment degrading, inhuman, torture and inadequate food in different prisons.
In addition, they have indicated that the Nicaraguan authorities do not allow political prisoners access to a specialized doctor to attend to their health problems, nor to reading material inside their cells.
According to latest report of the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners, until September 30, 2022, the Ortega dictatorship keeps 219 opponents imprisoned in Nicaragua.
