Twenty Human Rights Abuses Committed Against Nicaraguans by the Ortega-Murillo Regime

At least 20 of the 30 rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have been violated by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo since their return to power in 2007. These violations have occurred systematically and are being institutionalized through a major constitutional reform that regresses on the recognition of fundamental rights.

Human rights violations in Nicaragua gained prominence following the repression of massive protests in 2018, though they had occurred before that. Executions of farmers, arbitrary imprisonments, lack of access to justice, closures of media outlets, and repression of protests are among the abuses of the Ortega regime.

On this International Human Rights Day, CONFIDENCIAL analyzes each of the rights and guarantees violated by Ortega and Murillo, whose dictatorship threatens to impose further restrictions on Nicaraguans.

Civil and Political Rights

The execution of 234 farmers recorded between 2007 and 2020, and the killing of 325 people during the repression of citizen protests that began in April 2018, are clear examples of violations of the right to life and to live in freedom and security. Most of these murders were carried out by members of the Nicaraguan Army, the National Police, and paramilitary groups operating with state acquiescence. These crimes were not investigated, and the perpetrators enjoy impunity.

Police officers, guards of the National Penitentiary System, and paramilitary groups also committed acts of physical and psychological torture, including sexual and gender-based violence, and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment against dissidents. This was documented by the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), which investigates crimes committed in Nicaragua since the 2018 protests. The prohibition of torture is established in Article 5 of the Universal Declaration and Article 36 of Nicaragua’s Constitution, which has been removed in the constitutional reform to take effect in 2025.

With the approval of the Foreign Agents Law of October 2020, the Ortega-Murillo regime segregated the Nicaraguan population. Legal experts consulted by Confidencial explained that this law created two types of citizens: the “true” ones, who are regime supporters, and “foreign agents,” a category encompassing opponents. This segregation violates the principle of equality before the law enshrined in Article 7 of the Universal Declaration.

The segregation of the Nicaraguan population also violates the right to equality under Article 1 of the Universal Declaration, as it creates distinctions among citizens based on their political opinions. Even before the Foreign Agents Law, the regime had already deepened social inequalities by informally ensuring that only individuals with political backing or Sandinista party membership cards could access state services or aspire to public positions.

In a speech in February 2024, Ortega mocked his opponents, calling them “traitors, sellouts, and stateless.” According to him, those who “betray their country cease to belong to it, cease to be Nicaraguan.” This violates Article 2 of the Universal Declaration, which prohibits discrimination.

The 2021 reform and addition to the Criminal Procedure Code extended the period for detention without charges from 48 hours to 90 days. This violates the right to the presumption of innocence, as detainees are presumed guilty and only later investigated, as explained by Gonzalo Carrion, a human rights lawyer from the Nicaragua Nunca + Collective.

Arbitrary detentions are also a hallmark of the regime. In 2011, Marvin Vargas, known as “El Cachorro,” was imprisoned without any criminal charges against him. In 2014, nine individuals were jailed for the July 19 massacre without a clear resolution of the case. Since 2018, the arrests of political prisoners have been marked by violence and prolonged isolation. Starting in 2023, these detentions culminated in exile, violating protections against arbitrary detention and banishment.

The regime’s justice system also ignored habeas corpus petitions filed by families of forcibly disappeared individuals. Many of these people were detained by police or para-state agents and taken to undisclosed locations. For months, authorities denied holding them in custody, only to later sentence them in sham trials or exile them along with other political prisoners. These actions violate the right to a remedy before a competent tribunal, as outlined in Article 8 of the Universal Declaration.

Trials of political prisoners lack procedural guarantees. Initially, hearings were held behind closed doors, and case files were concealed to obstruct legitimate defense. Later, sentences exceeding the constitutional maximum of 30 years were imposed. In recent years, political prisoners have been denied the right to choose their legal counsel, being assigned court-appointed attorneys instead. Trials were held in prison facilities or via video calls, violating the right to a public and fair hearing.

Between 2018 and 2022, at least 138 individuals faced unjustified detentions, interrogations, arbitrary passport confiscations, and refusals to renew passports, including for children, according to civil society reports cited by GHREN. These abuses of the right to freedom of movement were institutionalized through reforms to the Migration and Alien Law and the Constitution, expected to go into effect early in 2025.

Between 2023 and 2024, the Ortega-Murillo regime arbitrarily stripped 452 political opponents of their Nicaraguan nationality—317 in February 2023 and 135 in September 2024. Among those denationalized were presidential candidates, academics, politicians, human rights defenders, journalists and other activists. Most of them were expelled from the country and rendered stateless, violating their right not to be arbitrarily deprived of nationality. The revocation of nationality for anyone declared a “traitor to the homeland” was institutionalized in Nicaragua through a constitutional reform approved in January 2024.

A total of 870 attacks on the Catholic Church were recorded between April 2018 and July 2024 in the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?” by lawyer Marta Patricia Molina. These attacks by the regime included the imprisonment and exile of 154 priests and 91 nuns, threats, physical and verbal assaults, defamation campaigns, surveillance, and desecration of churches. These actions violate the human right to freedom of worship and religion.

Since Ortega’s return to power in 2007, 56 media outlets have been shut down, some through license cancellations, others via economic strangulation, and more recently through the military seizure of their facilities and confiscation of assets. The regime has also forced 276 journalists into exile, according to the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy and Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua. These actions clearly violate the freedom of opinion and information, which has been further undermined by a new constitutional reform imposing censorship and controlling the media.

The regime has also implemented a permanent surveillance system targeting individuals deemed opponents. Through a 2024 amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code, the police were granted authority to raid homes, seize electronic devices, and demand digital information (calls, texts, voice messages, and geolocation) from telecommunications providers without a court order. These actions blatantly violate the right to privacy.

Between 2018 and 2024, the regime implemented measures to shut down civic and democratic spaces. Over 70% of nonprofit organizations (NGOs) in Nicaragua were eliminated. Of the 7,227 NGOs operating up to 2017, more than 5,244 have been dissolved. This undermines the human right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Before the 2021 general elections, the Ortega regime jailed all potential opposition presidential candidates and canceled the legal status of the opposition parties Citizens for Liberty (CxL) and the Democratic Restoration Party (PRD). The elections were held without any democratic guarantees. Ortega re-elected himself in an uncompetitive process, denying Nicaraguans their right to participate in public affairs.

An investigation by the Observatory for Transparency and Anti-Corruption estimates that between 2018 and 2024, confiscated assets amounted to at least $250 million. These actions highlight violations of the right to private property. Additionally, a reform to the Penal Code in August 2024 established the “seizure of assets” as punishment for alleged crimes committed by individuals outside the country.

Authorities in regime-aligned universities have violated students’ right to education, especially those considered opponents. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), at least 150 students were arbitrarily expelled between 2018 and 2022. The partisan control of universities increased persecution against students and professors labeled as opponents, who were stigmatized as “internal enemies,” resulting in “academic death,” according to the GHREN.

After the 2018 protests, several university professors were fired for their proximity to the student movement. In later years, the closure of private universities impacted thousands of faculty, administrators, and other staff. The closure of the Universidad del Occidente, the Martin Luther King Evangelical University, and the Central American University (UCA) alone left nearly 1,200 people unemployed, according to the GHREN. In all these cases, dismissed workers’ labor rights were not guaranteed, violating their right to work.

The regime has also confiscated pensions from retirees stripped of their Nicaraguan nationality and rendered stateless. In February 2023, affected individuals said that the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS) had canceled their registrations, and since then, they have stopped receiving pension payments despite having contributed most of their lives. These actions constitute a clear violation of the right to social security as outlined in Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.