Nicaragua: Six years after social protests, IACHR urges reestablishment of democracy, end to repression and impunity

April 18, 2024

Washington D.C.- Six years after the beginning of social protests in Nicaragua, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) urges the restoration of democracy, an end to repression in the country, and efforts to combat impunity for serious human rights violations committed since April 18, 2018.

The social protests of 2018 - initiated by senior citizens and supported by young people and university students in response to proposed reforms to the Social Security Law - spontaneously reflected the social discontent accumulated over the years in the face of institutional processes that were curtailing citizen expression, co-opting public institutions and concentrating public powers in the Executive.

The repressive and violent state response resulted in the deaths of at least 355 people, injuries to more than 2,000 people and the arbitrary detention of more than 2,000 people. According to the conclusions of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI-Nicaragua) and other United Nations mechanisms, in the context of state repression, Nicaragua carried out conduct that may constitute crimes against humanity, such as murder, deprivation of liberty, persecution, rape, torture and forced disappearance.

Since then, state repression against dissident voices has persisted under different guises and levels of intensity, triggering a political, social and human rights crisis that continues to deepen.

Since 2018, the IACHR has documented the continuation of arbitrary detentions, the permanent threat of criminalization, and a climate of persecution and surveillance against the civilian population that has forced thousands of people to move to other countries. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) more than 440,00 Nicaraguans requested asylum worldwide, between 2018 and 2023. Added to this is the expulsion of students from universities and the elimination of their academic records; the arbitrary detention and expulsion from the country of priests and nuns without guaranteeing due process; an arbitrary policy to prevent the free entry or exit of the country of the population; threats and harassment beyond the borders of the State reaching the arbitrary deprivation of Nicaraguan nationality and banishment, as well as the dispossession of property and pensions.

In the report "Concentration of Power and Weakening of the Rule of Law in Nicaragua", the IACHR observed that the gradual weakening of democratic institutions was consolidated with the re-election of Daniel Ortega in 2021 for a fourth consecutive term as president, under a climate of structural impunity, electoral fraud and repression, with the aim of perpetuating himself in power. Violations of the right of political participation included the arbitrary detention of all persons who expressed their interest in participating as candidates and the cancellation of opposition political parties.

The current context of the closure of the civic and democratic space in Nicaragua is one of the most serious in the region. The principle of separation of powers has been broken. All powers are aligned and directed by the Executive, so they do not represent limits to the exercise of power or prevent arbitrariness; on the contrary, they facilitate or consolidate it. The concentration of power has facilitated Nicaragua's transformation into a police state, where the Executive has installed a regime of terror, through the control and surveillance of the citizenry and repression through state and parastatal security institutions.

In its latest report, the Commission documented the radicalization of state repression to completely suppress the fundamental rights and freedoms that make up civic space, through the continued prohibition of protests and demonstrations, the dismantling of media outlets, the massive closure of civil society organizations, universities and study centers, and the persecution and criminalization of members of the Catholic Church. More than 3,300 civil society organizations have been forcibly closed since 2018.

The IACHR has been denouncing the intensification of repression against indigenous and Afro-descendant critics of the government, as well as the holding of regional elections in the Caribbean Coast in a serious context of armed attacks against these communities, the dispossession of their territories and natural resources, police siege, militarization, arrests of indigenous leaders, the proven absence of an independent electoral system and other facts that put their ethnic and cultural survival at risk.

The IACHR recalls that, by virtue of the obligations established in the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) and other international instruments, the State of Nicaragua continues to be obligated to investigate and punish all human rights violations.

The IACHR calls on the States of the region and the international community to promote the return to democracy and the full rule of law in Nicaragua, as well as to make efforts to prevent impunity for international crimes under international law. The end of impunity and the return of the system of representative democracy is the best guarantee of the validity of human rights and is the firm basis for solidarity among the countries of the continent.

Despite the denunciation of the Charter of the Organization of American States, the IACHR reiterates its full competence over the State of Nicaragua, and will continue to exercise its monitoring mandates through the Special Follow-up Mechanism for Nicaragua (MESENI), which includes following up on compliance with the recommendations issued in its various mechanisms, analyzing and processing cases and petitions, supervising its recommendations issued in the merits reports, and actively analyzing and supervising compliance with precautionary measures in force.

Finally, the Commission expresses and endorses its solidarity with the victims of human rights violations and with the Nicaraguan population.

The IACHR is a principal and autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), whose mandate stems from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has the mandate to promote the observance and defense of human rights in the region and acts as an advisory body to the OAS on the matter. The IACHR is made up of seven independent members who are elected by the OAS General Assembly in their personal capacity, and do not represent their countries of origin or residence.

No. 075/24

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