On 24 February, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) published its latest report to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).
The GHREN, tasked with conducting thorough and independent investigations into all alleged human rights violations and abuses committed in Nicaragua since April 2018, focused its report on the institutions and individuals responsible for violations in Nicaragua, complete with an annex of 10 functional diagrams ‘illustrating the de jure and de facto connexions between different State and non-State entities.’ The report also drew attention to the four-phase strategy of the Ortega-Murillo regime designed to gain absolute control of the country and to how the regime’s recent constitutional reforms provide unchecked executive authority.
The findings of the GHREN’s report are supported by a total of more than 1,500 interviews and 7,500 documents, and are also backed by reports by civil society organisations (CSOs) who have consistently and independently documented human rights violations. CSW, for example, documented 222 separate cases involving violations of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in 2024 alone, with most involving multiple violations and some affecting thousands of people.
Continue reading “No matter how hard it tries, the Nicaraguan government cannot make the evidence of its human rights violations disappear”