Civil liberties in Nicaragua have dramatically decreased, while repression under the Daniel Ortega-Rosario Murillo regime keeps increasing, even affecting exiles. Nicaragua’s Congress, under the control of the regime, passed a law on September 3 to try opponents in absentia. The law carries penalties of up to 30 years in prison and confiscation of property in an attempt to silence critical voices.
“These reforms could be used to further intensify the persecution and repression of Nicaraguans, including those in exile, as well as foreigners, for the legitimate exercise of their rights,” said Christian Salazar Volkmann, representative of the United Nations (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights, during the September 10 presentation of the report on the situation in Nicaragua at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.
Since the 2018 protests, the Ortega-Murillo regime has only tightened legislation and repression. It is estimated that more than 400 people died during the first months of these protests and, since then, thousands of Nicaraguans have gone into exile and hundreds have been expelled and had their property confiscated. By November 2023, the regime had shut down more than 3,500 nongovernmental organizations (NGO), including women’s, religious, international aid, and medical organizations. Between 2018 and 2022, the government closed at least 57 media outlets, according to the NGO Networks Nicaraguan Platform.
More recently, on August 19, the regime cancelled the registration of another 1,500 NGOs, according to the regime’s official Gazette. The Ortega-Murillo regime accuses the organizations, at least 695 of which are religious, of not reporting their financial statements for a period of between one and 35 years. Some of the organizations worked to promote sports, health, women’s rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, among other areas of human rights. The religious organizations targeted were overwhelmingly Christian, representing Catholic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal denominations, among others.
Prior to that, in early August, the regime had already canceled the legal status of Caritas of the Diocese of Matagalpa, for supposed bureaucratic reasons, Vatican News reported. The diocese is headed by Bishop Rolando Álvarez, a staunch critic of the regime who is living in exile after being convicted of charges including conspiracy and treason.
On September 5, the Ortega-Murillo regime released 135 political prisoners, who were sent to Guatemala. Five days later, the regime stripped the nationality and confiscated the assets of those freed.
On September 11, the regime called for the approval of reforms to the cybercrime law, better known as the gag law, to increase penalties for offenses and allow the prosecution of cybercrimes committed abroad. In an interview with Correio Braziliense, Félix Maradiaga, a former political prisoner, opposition leader, and president of the Nicaraguan Freedom Foundation, said that the law represents an “alarming advance in the consolidation of the authoritarian regime.”
“Daniel Ortega replicates repressive tactics implemented by dictatorships such as those in China and Russia. Not only is he attacking freedom of expression in Nicaragua, but he is also seeking to expand his repressive control internationally, especially by targeting opponents and dissidents living in exile,” Maradiaga said.
“What in any democratic society amounts to freedom of opinion, in Nicaragua, the police regime classifies it as terrorism, conspiracy or incitement to hatred,” said Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director of independent magazine Confidencial, who was stripped of his Nicaraguan nationality and lives in exile in Costa Rica.
