UN report points to widespread and systematic crimes against humanity in Nicaragua

Crimes against humanity are being committed by the government of Nicaragua “as part of a generalized and systematic action” against the country’s population for political reasons, the UN Group of Experts on Human Rights for the Central American country denounced Monday (6).

Presenting their first report on the situation in Nicaragua, released on March 2 and debated on Monday at the UN Human Rights Council, the experts said that the “crime against humanity of persecution” is committed “from the highest levels of government.”

The regime of Daniel Ortega “has used all the powers of the state against real or perceived opponents,” said German Jan Simon, chairman of the group of experts, which also comprises Chilean Alexandro Álvarez and Colombian Ángela Buitrago.

Simon told the Council that the prevailing impunity for these crimes “has allowed the escalation of violence against those who oppose or are perceived as such.”

The report, which investigated 159 cases and included interviews with 291 victims and witnesses, documents human rights violations such as extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions, torture including sexual violence, and arbitrary deprivation of nationality, among other abuses.

Amid these violations against people who oppose the Nicaraguan government “or are considered as such,” the expert group urged the Ortega regime to put an immediate end to the abuses and ensure accountability for the perpetrators, ensuring justice for the victims.

It also called for the immediate release of all persons arbitrarily deprived of liberty and the “implementation of the necessary measures to guarantee the separation of powers” in Nicaragua.

In presenting the report, the group’s president stressed that it was not possible to conduct investigations inside Nicaragua because it had not received permission from the authorities, although five missions were carried out in areas near that territory.

The report concludes that Ortega, his wife and vice-president Rosario Murillo, and high-level members of the National Police and other state entities are behind these crimes against humanity.

The expert group was created based on a resolution passed in March 2022 by the Human Rights Council itself to investigate and gather evidence of the crisis in Nicaragua that originated after the 2018 protests.

After the words of the group’s president, Nicaragua’s attorney general, Wendy Morales, had her turn to respond and, via video message, rejected the experts’ conclusions, which she said were based on information “from sectors of the opposition that disseminate subjective, distorted and false situations and facts.”

With information from EFE