Nicaragua: hard right crackdown intensifies
https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/09/group-experts-nicaragua-finds-escalating-persecution-against-dissent-and-crackdown
Group of Experts on Nicaragua finds escalating persecution against dissent and crackdown on independent academic institutions
12 September 2023
GENEVA (12 September 2023) A new wave of human rights violations in Nicaragua over the past six months has seriously stifled dissenting voices and increased persecution, the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) said in its latest update on the countrys human rights situation today.
During a presentation to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the experts said human rights defenders and opponents are facing severe pressure to leave Nicaragua, through constant surveillance, harassment in public and private spaces, and the continued criminalization and use of arbitrary detention.
Religious actors, in particular of the Catholic Church, are increasingly being targeted. This has led many defenders and opponents to abandon the country. Once abroad, they have faced arbitrary deprivation of their nationality, confiscation of assets and their relatives in Nicaragua have been exposed to intimidation.
In addition, the Government has intensified its targeting of universities as spaces for critical and independent thinking. The legal status of 27 institutions have been cancelled and their assets confiscated. This has been done invoking supposed breaches of regulations, reflecting the instrumentalization of the State apparatus to suppress academic freedom and diversity.
more