The government of Daniel Ortega continues to intensify the repression in Nicaragua against critical voices and has increased the number of people detained arbitrarily, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said this Thursday, after offering a update about the panorama that exists in this Central American country.
Volker explained that in recent months the number of people detained in Nicaragua increased from 195 in September to the 225 registered to date. “This includes family members of previously detained political opponents,” he said.
On the other hand, he denounced that more than 3,000 NGOs were closed in the Central American country from 2018 to 2022, leaving countless people affected, including indigenous people and vulnerable sectors.
“The country has continued to isolate itself from the international community and this year the government has refused to cooperate in allowing the UN subcommittee on the prevention of torture to visit the country,” Volker lamented.
The Nicaraguan Attorney General, Wendy Morales, intervened in the special session through a video call and charged against the United Nations, assuring that the multinational organization “continues to be infamous towards Nicaragua, discrediting and denigrating the country’s authorities and institutions.”
“The legitimate government of Nicaragua will not tire of repeating with dignity our total rejection of this type of mechanism that is updated in a unilateral and biased way by using arguments that are far from our homeland,” Morales said.
After concluding the presentation of the panorama in Nicaragua, representatives of the European Union, as well as other countries such as Chile, Canada, the United States and Costa Rica, expressed their concern about the reports and called for the “unconditional” release of the political prisoners, as well as as the restoration of democracy in the Central American nation.
They ask to extend the resolution on Nicaragua for two years
A group of 34 Nicaraguan and international organizations, including Race and Equality, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh); and the Nicaragua Nunca Más Human Rights Collective, asked the United Nations to renew its resolution on Managua for two years.
“We call on all governments to support said resolution at the next session of the Human Rights Council, and reinforce its intersectional approach, paying special attention to the situation of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, migrants and forcibly displaced persons. , people detained for political reasons, and the relatives of the victims,” they said in a press release.
Nicaragua has been experiencing a political crisis for four years when protests arose against President Daniel Ortega, which the president called an attempted coup.
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