They denounce a new wave of human rights violations in Nicaragua

Nicaragua's Blue and White Monitoring Observatory said Wednesday that a wave of human rights violations is underway in the Central American country, with five days left until the fourth anniversary of the massive protests against Daniel Ortega's regime.

This organization counts “29 incidents related to human rights violations between Monday, April 11 and Tuesday, April 12,” including “seven harassments” and “six arrests” of people who have expressed their rejection of Ortega, including four musicians.

Blue and White Monitoring also reported 11 raids on opposition families, four threats and one “judicialization”.

For its part, the Social Movements Articulation (AMS), which brings together some 60 community organizations, called on dissent to denounce violence and abuse of power and also asked the international community to keep an eye on what is happening in Nicaragua.

“We urgently call for citizen solidarity and the collective and mass denunciation of these new expressions of violence and abuse of power, as well as to strengthen security measures. We urge the international community and human rights organizations to keep a vigilant eye on the situation in Nicaragua, and to continue demanding the freedom of political prisoners and the restoration of democracy,” said the AMS.

The raids and arrests of opponents have occurred periodically in Nicaragua since the anti-government demonstrations in 2018.

The last wave of raids and arrests came to an end last November, during the general elections in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice-president, and with seven of his opponents in prison.

In the last two weeks Murillo has insisted that the protests against her husband “will never return”.

In 2018, Nicaraguans rose in massive anti-government protests, which, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), left at least 355 dead and thousands of people arrested, of whom 181 remain in prison, plus more than 100,000 in exile.

(With information from EFE)

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