FILE - Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo attend a rally in Managua, Nicaragua, Sept. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga, File)
UN report: Nicaragua’s human rights crisis deepens
MEXICO CITY (AP) 鈥 A new United Nations report details a Nicaragua tightly in the grasp of co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, where the legislative and judicial branches answer to the executive and basic human rights protections are gone.
FILE - Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo attend a rally in Managua, Nicaragua, Sept. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga, File)
MEXICO CITY (AP) 鈥 A new United Nations report details a Nicaragua tightly in the grasp of co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, where the legislative and judicial branches answer to the executive and basic human rights protections are gone.
Little of that will come as a surprise to the tens of thousands of country in recent years, but the report of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights discusses the Central American country鈥檚 continuing deterioration in the starkest terms.
The report scheduled to be presented in Geneva Tuesday, was compiled from more than 200 interviews with victims, witnesses and other sources. The U.N. human rights office does not have access to Nicaragua and the government did not respond to its questionnaire.
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A major constitutional reform adopted in January reduces 鈥渢he legislative and judicial branches to entities coordinated by and subordinated to the presidency,鈥 while the public prosecutor鈥檚 office 鈥渨as placed under direct presidential control,鈥 the report said.
The U.N. denounced 鈥渢he constitutional recognition of paramilitary forces, the institutionalized use of informant networks and surveillance and the misapplication of criminal offenses.鈥
鈥淪uch frameworks have created a context in which any person perceived as opposing the authorities may be subjected to retaliation,鈥 the report said.
Andr茅s S谩nchez Thorin, the U.N. Human Rights Office representative in Central America, said Ortega and Murillo had essentially wiped out Nicaraguan civil society.
鈥淪ince 2018, eight of every 10 organizations have been canceled or had to close, many of them religious and their assets confiscated,鈥 he said. 鈥淎dd to this a reform to the electoral system that puts political pluralism in serious danger, and with it, people鈥檚 fundamental right to participate in the democratic life of the country.鈥
The crackdown started with violent government repression of that and led to an exodus of journalists and civil society. Ortega has framed those protests as an attempted coup with foreign backing.
Since then, the Nicaraguan government 鈥渉as deliberately transformed the country into an authoritarian state,鈥 .
