President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, intensified repression. They have expanded the use of forced exile and citizenship revocation as ways to target critics. The government also continued to arbitrarily shut down non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and universities in large numbers, and to engage in other systematic methods of censorship and persecution against critics and opponents.
Concentration of Power
In November, Ortega proposed a constitutional overhaul that would expand presidential powers and limit fundamental rights. The changes would establish a “co-presidency” with Murillo, and empower them to “coordinate” other branches of power. It also appears designed to provide legal cover to many of the government’s systematic human rights violations, such as depriving so-called “traitors” of their Nicaraguan nationality and censoring the press. The Assembly must approve the reform in two consecutive sessions, with the final vote expected in January’s new term.
Expulsion and Deprivation of Nationality
In September, the government expelled 135 political prisoners to Guatemala, stripping them of nationality and confiscating their assets, violating international law. Another 46 political opponents remained imprisoned, including some Indigenous leaders. Over 450 people have been deprived of Nicaraguan nationality since February 2023, and many have been left stateless.
In September, the National Assembly, controlled by the ruling party, amended the Criminal Code to be able to prosecute in absentia people who are abroad but are accused of committing certain crimes in Nicaragua—a law that could open the door to targeting critics in exile, including those the government has expelled. The assembly also expanded judges’ powers to seize assets from defendants and established criminal penalties for “anyone who promotes, requests, or facilitates economic, commercial, or financial sanctions against Nicaragua’s institutions or government officials.”
Freedom of Religion
The government has intensified its campaign against religious institutions, especially the Catholic Church. Since October 2023, Nicaragua has forced over 200 religious figures into exile, deported them, or barred their return to the country.
In August, the government expelled seven Catholic priests, after arbitrarily detaining them for several days at a seminary. In January, the government expelled 19 Catholic clergy members, sending them to the Vatican, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken government critic, who had been arbitrarily detained since August 2022 and sentenced to 26 years in prison without due process. In total, authorities have detained and subsequently expelled 46 priests and bishops since 2018.
Since 2023, repression has expanded to include protestant and evangelical groups. In August, authorities released and expelled 11 pastors of an evangelical church who had been imprisoned since December 2023.
Freedoms of Expression and Association
Human rights defenders, journalists, and critics are targets of death threats, assaults, intimidation, harassment, surveillance, online defamation campaigns, arbitrary detention, prosecution, deprivation of nationality, expulsion and denial of entry to Nicaragua.
The government has shut down over 5,600 NGOs, including 1,500 closed in a single day in August. These represent roughly 80 percent of NGOs that operated in Nicaragua, according to the latest available figures from 2018.
The government has also closed at least 58 media outlets since 2018, the Nicaraguan Platform of NGO Networks reported. Abusive legislation enabled many of the closures.
Between January and June, 26 journalists fled the country, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) reported, bringing the total number of media workers who have fled Nicaragua since 2018 to 263.
Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
Indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders face defamation campaigns, surveillance, harassment, arbitrary detention, politically motivated prosecutions, and entry bans to Nicaragua. In October 2023, the Supreme Electoral Council stripped the Indigenous political party YATAMA of its legal status.
In September 2023, the police detained two of YATAMA’s main leaders, Brooklyn Rivera and Nancy Henríquez. In December of that year, a court sentenced Henríquez to eight years in prison for “undermining national integrity” and “spreading fake news.” She appears to be imprisoned in “La Esperanza” prison; Rivera’s whereabouts remained unknown to his family and acquaintances at time of writing.
Indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders and organizations face repression amid escalating armed settler violence and encroachment on communal lands in the Autonomous Regions. The United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2022, documented 67 violent incidents against Indigenous Peoples in Miskitu and Mayangna territories from April 2018 to March 2024, including murder, injury, sexual violence, and kidnappings.
In March, the UN Green Climate Fund (GCF) terminated funding for Bio-CLIMA, an environmental project aimed at reducing deforestation in key biospheres. The Fund cited policy non-compliance and lack of proper consent from Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities.
Access to abortion
Nicaragua has, since 2006, prohibited abortion under all circumstances. Those who have abortions face prison sentences of up to two years and medical professionals who perform them face up to six years. The ban forces women and girls to continue unwanted pregnancies, putting their health and lives at risk.
Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants
As of July, there were 345,800 Nicaraguan asylum seekers abroad, often in Costa Rica, the United States, Panama, Spain, and Mexico. Some 30,000 others were recognized as refugees.
Nicaragua has become a major transit point for migrants and asylum seekers heading to the US. Since 2021, Nicaragua has operated a continuous migrant air bridge, expanding to intercontinental routes. According to media reports, from May 2023 to May 2024, Managua's airport received charter flights with over 190,000 passengers, primarily from Caribbean nations. The government has profited from this influx, charging people fees to allow entry.
Justice and Accountability
The UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua has found reasonable grounds to believe that the authorities have committed crimes against humanity, including murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, forced deportation, and persecution on political grounds. The group’s current mandate is up for renewal in March 2025.
In October 2022, an Argentine prosecutor opened a criminal investigation, for alleged crimes against humanity, into Ortega and Murillo under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows national courts to prosecute individuals for serious international crimes regardless of where they occurred or the nationalities of those involved.
No international rights monitoring bodies have been allowed to enter Nicaragua since 2018.
Sanctions and Financing of Repression
In May, the US Department of State imposed visa restrictions on more than 250 members of the Nicaraguan government and non-government actors for their roles in supporting “attacks on human rights and fundamental freedoms, repression of civil society organizations, and profiting off of vulnerable migrants.” Since November 2021, the US Department of State has imposed visa restrictions on more than 1,400 Nicaraguan officials involved in human rights violations, and corrupt practices.
Also in May, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on three Nicaragua-based entities for their corruption or role in the Nicaraguan government’s repression of the Nicaraguan people. As of September, the US Treasury Department had imposed asset-blocking sanctions on 14 entities and 47 people, including members of the government, legislature, and judiciary.
In November 2023, the US State Department launched a new visa restriction policy “targeting individuals running charter flights into Nicaragua designed primarily for irregular migrants.” In June, the State Department imposed visa restrictions on an executive of a charter flight transportation company for “facilitating irregular migration to the United States via Nicaragua from outside the Western Hemisphere.”
The EU renewed sanctions on 21 individuals and 3 state-linked entities in October. The United Kingdom and Canada have respectively sanctioned 14 and 35 individuals implicated in human rights violations.
The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) provided US$2.65 billion in loans to Nicaragua between 2018 and 2022, including funding for police infrastructure, despite widespread documentation of human rights abuses by the Nicaraguan government during this period. CABEI’s president, Gisela Sánchez, who took office in December 2023, said the bank is reviewing all loans approved over the past 10 years.