The latest report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the situation in Nicaragua is alarming, detailing the worsening repression that includes political and religious persecution, kidnappings, forced disappearances, imprisonment, exile, cruel torture and “extreme suffering” inflicted on opponents and families, including children.
The report, which will be presented during the fifty-seventh session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) on September 9, once again reveals the cruelty of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship against those who do not share its political positions or its model of government.
The document contains detailed information with an “overview” of the country’s situation monitored between June 15, 2023 and June 15, 2024.
The OHCHR notes that it has continued to document human rights violations that “aggravate the reduction of civic and democratic spaces and expand government control over all public institutions, whether administrative, judicial, political, academic or cultural.”
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They also denounce that the Ortega Murillo regime continues to persecute not only opponents, but also “any person or organization that acts independently or is not directly under its control.”
“This includes human rights defenders, independent media, non-governmental organizations and any other entity advocating for social or political change without government oversight,” OHCHR reports.
Horror report
The High Commissioner for Human Rights, in his report to be presented to the UN Council, defines that “the arbitrary nature of the deprivation of liberty, the length of prison sentences, and the cruelty of ill-treatment, including torture, inflicted on persons persecuted for their alleged opposition to the Government, remain a cause for serious concern.”
He adds that some prisoners of conscience are held incommunicado for months without charge or receive long prison sentences in judicial proceedings that lack fair trial standards and due process guarantees.
Regarding torture and cruel treatment, OHCHR documented cases of five detainees who were subjected to torture or ill-treatment, including “brutal beatings, prolonged isolation, and postural and stress torture.”
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In addition, in the second half of 2023, the agency documented seven new cases of torture, including “electric shocks, sexual abuse and rape.”
«Three detained men reported being raped, and two cases of female circumcision and three cases of testicular strangulation were reported. Survivors interviewed by OHCHR showed visible signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.»
The dictatorship’s torturers threatened the victims and their families so that they would not report the torture or the conditions of detention.
The main detention and torture centres that remain active, according to the UN report, are the Jorge Navarro Penitentiary Centre, known as La Modelo; the La Esperanza women’s penitentiary; the Judicial Assistance Directorate, known as El Nuevo Chipote; and the District III police station.
Gender violence promoted by dictators against female opponents
In the report, the UN denounces that the dictatorship engages in a systematic practice of gender violence, mainly against women who are opponents or those perceived as such.
They recall that in February of this year the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women expressed its concern about gender-based violence, isolation and poor conditions of detention for women, including overcrowding, prison infrastructure inadequate for women and their children and limited access to drinking water and adequate hygiene and health care products.
“The Committee noted with concern reports of degrading treatment of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in detention, and that transgender women were often held in male detention centres,” the report said.
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Added to this are the forced disappearances, a condition in which at least three people still find themselves: the Miskito political leader and deputy for the Autonomous Region of the North Caribbean Coast (RACCN), Brooklyn Rivera, who has been forcibly disappeared since September 29, meaning he has been missing for almost a year.
The same applies to university professor and trainer of generations of communicators and sociologists Freddy Quezada, kidnapped by the repressive forces of the dictatorship on November 29 of last year. The same applies to writer and poet Carlos Bojorge, about whom the dictatorship has not given any information since his capture on January 1 of this year.
Cruelty against girls and boys
The report adds the terrible information about the separation of children from their parents, including babies just a few months old, who have been forcibly separated from their parents.
The document, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council, denounces that the OHCHR documented “two cases in which (Nicaraguan) babies aged 2 and 3 months (of age) were separated from their mothers after they were arbitrarily arrested and placed in preventive detention, which resulted in the abrupt cessation of breastfeeding.”
The report also notes that during the reporting period, OHCHR continues to receive information indicating that the widely documented practice of denying family visits (including for children) to persons detained in connection with the human rights crisis that began in 2018 continues, with serious consequences for children.
“Children continued to be separated from their parents, who were arbitrarily barred from entering the country after travelling abroad,” the document added.
The report also recounts the reduction of civic spaces through the cancellation of more than 5,000 Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs), religious persecution through the kidnapping and banishment of priests, as well as the prohibition of religious activities.
The UN insists that the more than 130 prisoners of conscience who remain in the prisons of the dictatorship must be released immediately and unconditionally.
