UN accuses Nicaraguan dictatorship of crimes against humanity

A group of UN experts has accused the Nicaraguan regime of committing systematic human rights violations, which constitute “Crimes against humanity“, according to a report published this Thursday in which he calls for international sanctions.

The document of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua mentions, among these violations and abuses, extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests, torture and arbitrary deprivation of nationality and the right to stay in one’s country.

“They are perpetrated in a widespread and systematic way for political reasons, and constitute Crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment, torture, including sexual violence, deportation and politically motivated persecution,” the independent expert said. Jan Simonquoted in a press release.

“The people of Nicaragua live in fear actions that the government itself might take against them,” Simon added.

The Panel of Experts is an independent body established by mandate of the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate alleged human rights violations committed in Nicaragua since April 2018, when violently repressed protests erupted, killing 355 and detaining hundreds.

On February 9, the Daniel Ortega regime released 222 opponentsdeported them to the United States and stripped them of their nationality.

A week after, 94 dissidents were also stripped of their nationality who were already in exile, among them the writers Sergio Ramirez there Mona Lisa Belli.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has warned that Nicaraguan legislation which allows deprivation of citizenship violates international law.

Ortega, in power since 2007 and successively re-elected in disputed elections, faces a wave of condemnations of the international community because of its authoritarian drift.

The report points out that the abuses “are not an isolated phenomenon“, but the fruit of a “deliberate dismantling of democratic institutions and destruction of civic and democratic space”.

Since December 2018, at least 3,144 civil society organizations have been shut down and virtually all independent media and human rights organizations operate from abroad, the statement said.

Simon accused the Nicaraguan government of “instrumentalizing the executive, legislative, judicial and electoral powers to (…) put in place a legal framework tending to repress” fundamental freedoms and “eliminate, by various means, any opposition in the country”.

According to the panel, Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, committed these crimes and continue to do so.

In its report, the group urges the international community to take legal action against those responsible for these violations and to strengthen the sanctions.

Simon stressed that the state and individuals responsible for human rights violations must be held accountable, whether under international criminal law, Nicaraguan law or the law of a third country.

The report says national police and pro-government armed groups, in a coordinated fashion, carried out a series of extrajudicial killings during the 2018 protests, which lasted nearly five months.

Deaths whose investigation has been hindered by the Ortega government, according to experts.

In addition, he accuses police officers, prison officers and members of pro-government armed groups of committing acts of torture, including sexual violence, during the interrogation and detention of opponents.

“The authorities have sought persecution, criminalization and the elimination of any voice of opposition,” said expert Ángela María Buitrago, quoted in the statement.

“Thousands of human rights defenders, NGO workers, activists, journalists, student and religious leaders, artists” and opposition leaders “have been forced to leave the country” , he insisted.

In the document, the experts urge the government to end “rape, abuse and crimes, especially politically motivated persecution” and to open independent investigations into reported abuses.

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