Brooklyn Rivera

Brooklyn Rivera Bryan: Arrested After Resisting to Forced Exile

September 29, 2023, the news spread like wildfires: the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime had prevented Brooklyn Rivera to return to his country, Nicaragua. Brooklyn Rivera is indigenous miskitu, regional deputy and leader of the misquito community (Ta Upla), and Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Aslatakanka, “Children of Mother Earth United”.

Rivera Bryan was elected regional deputy by the YATAMA organization for the period of 2022-2026. After being prohibited from returning to his own country, after participating in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues celebrated in New York, he had to return to Nicaragua through the Honduran Mosquita.

Deputy Rivera maintained his whereabouts hidden while he was home in Bilwi until on September 29 a group of supposed employees of the Minister of Health presented themselves in his home, to do a supervision due to malaria outbreaks.

Brooklyn’s family denied access to the property and moments after, three cop cars arrived, and, without a search warrant, entered the house, took everyone’s phone and Deputy Rivera.

La familia de Brooklyn les negó el acceso a la propiedad y momentos después llegaron tres patrullas de la policía que, sin orden de allanamiento, ingresaron a la vivienda, les quitaron los teléfonos a todos los que se encontraban en ella y se llevaron al diputado Rivera.

Simultaneously the regime ocupred the known “Casa Verde,” in Bilwi and Waspan, place that served as headquarters for the Yatama party and that also functioned as a community radio.

After the arrest, the family went to the Bilwi police station to ask about Brooklyn, however they were not given any information and afterwards they learned that he had been transported in an ambulance to the Sahsa community and was later sent to Managua.

In the first days of October, a communications network reported that Brooklyn was admitted in the Hospital de la Policia in Managua. However, until this day the family has looked for, without finding any, information on his whereabouts.

His relatives denounced that since he returned to Nicaragua, he was under the surveillance of the Ortega-Murillo regime and that they knew his routines and even the people he had contact with.

On October 9, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted cautionary measures, after considering that Brooklyn Rivera Bryan’s rights to life and personal integrity are at serious risk. Considered also that the time passed without establishing his whereabouts is likely to generate greater effects on the personal integrity of the proposed beneficiary. And, finally that there is a potential impact on rights to life and personal integrity, which constitutes the maximum situation of irreparability.

Along other measures, the IACHR asked the State to adopt necessary measures to determine the situation and whereabouts of Mister Brooklyn Rivera Bryan, with the purpose of protecting his rights to life and personal integrity.

In view of the failure to comply with precautionary measures, the Inter-American Court granted provisional measures on February 1, 2024, ordering their immediate release.

Since his arrest, Brooklyn Rivera’s family has not been able to know of hi, where he is or his health.

Freedom for Brooklyn Rivera!

We demand to the Ortega-Murillo regime: Free Nicas Now