Washington D.C., September 10, 2024. From Race and Equality and the #NicasLibresYa campaign, we express our strongest condemnation of the arbitrary decision taken by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to take away the Nicaraguan nationality of 135 people who were exiled to Guatemala on September 5th after suffering imprisonment for political reasons.
It is not the first time that the regime in Nicaragua has left in a situation of vulnerability and condemned to statelessness people who, for years, suffered from political persecution, torture and now exile. Following the release of 222 politically motivated people on 9 February 2023, the regime stripped them of their nationality and subsequently applied the same pattern to 94 other exiles, including the confiscation of their property.
In total, there are already 452 people who were born in Nicaragua and have lived their entire lives as Nicaraguans enjoying the protection recognized by international human rights conventions and national laws spuriously reformed by Ortega, Murillo and their accomplices. All of them have seen their nationality revoked without the possibility of defending themselves in court by a decision of the regime, motivated by hatred towards those who think differently and by the political persecution unleashed against a people who demand democracy and respect for their human rights.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has warned that people who remain stateless may “find it difficult to exercise their fundamental rights such as education, health, employment and freedom of movement”.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has affirmed that arbitrary deprivation of nationality is prohibited by international human rights law and by the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, to which Nicaragua is a State Party, especially when it is a politically motivated penalty or sanction.
For its part, the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), in its oral update before the United Nations Human Rights Council today, denounced that crimes against humanity continue to be committed in Nicaragua, particularly persecution for political reasons.
“Facts that entail serious violations and abuses of human rights, and that include the deprivation of nationality for political reasons; facts that have gone unpunished and without any reparation,” said Jan Michael Simon, president of the GHREN, claiming that they have reasonable grounds to believe that Ortega and Murillo are the main culprits.
Christina Fetterhoff, director of programs for Race and Equality, said that “the fact that these 135 Nicaraguans have been released from prison and are now in a safe place, without mistreatment and torture, brings us relief and hope; however, the struggle does not end here since the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo surpasses the worst in the world. If they are not arrested now, they will continue to imprison, banish, and strip more people of their Nicaraguan nationality. International solidarity must go one step further!”
For Carlos Quesada, director of Race and Equality, “the international community not only has the moral duty to firmly condemn these events, but also to promote the proper application of universal and extraterritorial jurisdiction. They must also guarantee international protection to all Nicaraguans fleeing persecution, facilitating their integration process to resume their life projects and strictly defending the principle of non-refoulement, so that no victim is forced to return to a country where their life, liberty or rights are in danger. It is urgent to redouble efforts to end this crisis!”
In addition, we reiterate our call for the international financial institutions to take into account the aberrant practices to which the regime resorts towards dissident voices, and in this regard we urge them once again to proceed with the immediate and urgent review of their development and investment projects, and in the face of the verified violations of human rights and crimes against humanity, to proceed to the conditional suspension and/or cancellation of the same in Nicaraguan territory.
Our commitment is and will continue to be to accompany the victims of repression during this process and to demand justice before international bodies for the crimes being committed by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo and all their accomplices.
Sanctions for those responsible for the arbitrary detentions and the stripping of Nicaraguan nationality!