Nicaragua’s crackdown on opponents amounts to crimes against humanity, UN experts say

Nicaragua's state institutions have together carried out enforced disappearances, torture and arbitrary detention of political opponents, conduct that amounts to crimes against humanity, according to a report published on Tuesday by UN experts.

The three UN experts asked to investigate human rights in Nicaragua said they had documented imprisonment, torture and persecution on political grounds as part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians.

The permanent diplomatic mission of Nicaragua in Geneva did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

State institutions, including the police, prosecutors and the intelligence services, coordinated under a chain of command extending to senior levels of government in a systematic campaign to identify, monitor, and imprison critics, the report found.

Daniel Ortega, the co-president of Nicaragua, is the longest-serving leader in the Americas, with nearly two decades in power. His wife and former vice president, Rosario Murillo, is co-president.

In July, Ortega said the country would no longer hold elections to prevent the opposition from "seizing the government" again. The report said this underscored its findings on the systematic dismantling of rights and freedoms.

In September, Nicaragua's Congress passed a constitutional reform that would ban opposition parties from participating in elections, a move that has drawn criticism from ‌the US and other countries in the region.

The report said Nicaragua's use of arbitrary detention and unfair trials was part of an effort to silence opponents following a wave of protests in April 2018 against the government of Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla. A violent crackdown on protesters left more than 300 dead and triggered a mass exodus of Nicaraguans.

Since 2023, authorities have shifted toward the use of long-term enforced disappearances and nationwide police raids aimed at eliminating remaining pockets of dissent and consolidating absolute control, while expanding their targets to include church members, Indigenous leaders and former state and military officials, the report stated. It said female detainees were further subjected to gender-based abuse and humiliation, including threats of sexual violence.

The UN experts verified 161 cases of enforced disappearance since April 2018, ranging from a few days to several years. They urged Nicaragua's government to end the practice and to release information on the whereabouts of missing persons.