UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : HRC Press Conference: Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua

OK, good afternoon everyone and welcome to this press conference with a group of human rights experts on Nicaragua who are here to share with you the findings of their latest report.

As you may know, the Human Rights Council established the Group of Experts in Nicaragua in 2022 to investigate all alleged human rights violations and abuses committed in Nicaragua since April of 2018.

The group released or presented their latest oral update to the Council this morning, and they're here to answer any questions you may have.

With us in the room are the chair, Jan, Michael Simon, and joining us online are fellow experts Ariela Peralta Distefano and Reed Brody.

We'll start off with opening statements by each of the experts starting with the chair, followed by those joining us online, and then we will open the floor to your questions.

[Other language spoken]

So thank you, Todd.

Good afternoon, everybody.

We would like to thank the Meteor for its continued interest in Nicaragua, especially in these internationally eventful times.

And our report published today shows how the Ortega Morello regime is increasingly extending its punitive reach transnationally.

Legal, digital and physical means or employed to violate systematically human rights of opponents, including via proxy punishment of family members.

Their objective is crystal clear, generate A pervasive climate of fear and create a powerful chilling effect to discourage any form of opposition, irrespective of their geographical location.

As a consequence, Nicaraguans in exile find themselves in an extremely vulnerable situation and my colleagues will go into detail on specific aspects.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me draw your attention to a particularly sensitive issue of all this, which at first sight is not obvious, or at least not on its full scope.

This concerns international relations.

The Ortega Marilla regime as part of its strategy has demonstrated A cynical and calculated approach to international cooperation.

They have been leveraging Interpol anti money laundering and counter financing of terrorism corporation frameworks to persecute transnationally opponents.

This includes the abuse of Interpol's rat notice system and the circulation of false alerts on travel documents misusing Interpol's SLTD database.

They have also been circulating misinformation to trigger AML and CFT compliance warnings within the international financial systems and leading to the freezing of closure of bank accounts of their targets.

At the same time, within months, Ortega Morillo have been withdrawing from several international and United Nation agencies and the Human Rights Council.

So this dual strategy of using and abusing international mechanisms while at the same time and simultaneously withdrawing from international organisations, pursues 2 key goals.

The 1st and more evident 1 is to avoid scrutiny and accountability while continuing to perpetrate human rights violations.

But the second and less evident goal here consists in a direct and aggressive challenge to the international legal order, in the response not merely to an administrative or diplomatic disagreement, but to express profound disregard for international obligations.

This strategical perverts the principle of mutual trust in international cooperation, undermining the integrity of global security systems and human rights.

It undermines a very foundation of international law enforcement operation, which relies on trust and adherence to human rights principles.

And this particular strategy of transnational expression needs to be addressed by the international community.

And I'll hand over to my colleague.

Greet to its introductory comments.

[Other language spoken]

All.

The world was shaken in June by the murder of retired Major Roberto Samkam, A vocal critic of the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Mario.

Samkam was shot dead in his apartment in San Jose, Costa Rica.

His killing underscored a chilling reality even beyond Nicaragua's borders.

Opponents of the government do not feel safe.

I want to be clear.

While Costa Rica's prosecutor has said that they are strongly looking at the possibility of a politically motivated attack, no evidence yet implicates the government of Nicaragua.

But in a country from which hundreds of thousands have fled in recent years, the fatal attack raised urgent alarms about Nicaragua's transnational repression against Nicaraguans living abroad.

It's as if an invisible hand follows exiles everywhere.

This repression includes the arbitrary deprivation of nationality that bans, on returning to to Nicaragua, the refusal to issue or renew passports for Nicaraguans, the deletion of civil records, the revocation of academic and professional titles, the confiscation of property and pensions and, as John has described, the misuse of Interpol and other international mechanisms.

These acts are complemented by the targeting of Nicaraguans of the relatives who remain in Nicaragua, who are subject to harassment, detention, dismissal from employment, confiscation of properties solely by virtue of association.

The cumulative effect of these measures is to deprive the victims, those denationalised, of their legal identity, their property, their income, their ability to move freely and ultimately their recognition as persons before the law.

Our report finds that these acts form part of a consistent and deliberate state policy to silence dissent, eradicate opposition voices abroad and guarantee impunity for the crimes committed inside Nicaragua.

1 violation in particular stands out Nicaragua's large scale use of the arbitrary deprivation of nationality as a mechanism of targeted political repression against perceived opponents, which is unique in the world.

Among those declared traitors to the homeland and deprived of their nationality have been the country's leading human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, priests, indigenous and peasant activists, former Vice President Sergio Ramirez, the poet Giaconda Belli, several former presidential candidates.

This practise violates the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness ratified by Nicaragua, and our group is calling on state parties to hold Nicaragua accountable by bringing a case against Nicaragua to the International Court of Justice.

As Jan Simon mentioned, Nicaragua has withdrawn from practically every human rights and monitoring body, including the Human Rights Council.

But since 1984, when Nicaragua brought its historic case to the ICJ to condemn US aggression against the country, Nicaragua has brought 9 cases to the ICJ, far more than any other state.

The ICJ has referred to five times in the Nicaraguan Constitution, and Nicaragua respects its decisions.

States thus have at their disposal a means to stop this cruel practise, and we urge them to take it up.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, my colleagues, Reid and and Tom.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for joining us today.

I'm going to address issues of concerned related to enforced disappearances, death in custody and arbitrary detention.

The group continues to express serious concerns about the deterioration of the situation of human rights inside the country.

The revival of enforced disappearances is one of the most alarming development we have since the group starts in work in mandate in 2022.

Also, the group continues to raise alarm over the increase of mass arrest and prolonged incommunicado detention in Nicaragua.

Authorities have refused to disclose the fate and whatabouts of dozen of detainees at which amount to enforce disappearances.

The group have has documented 22 cases of prolonged enforced disappearances.

These cases are not isolated.

They form part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians meeting the beginning of crimes against humanity under international law.

International law have does not require a minimum duration of or an act of qualified assent for disappearances.

So we are we want to be clear that the group is applying the amount of enforced disappear and under international human rights law, the November 2024 detention of 45 political opponents whose whereabouts are are hidden for two weeks are clear violation regardless of their short terms.

We also expressed concern about recent death in custody, which occurred while the individual were held incommunicado.

When people are detained in secret torture and in some cases die under the state custody, it says responsibility is in court under international law.

Arbitrary detention fuel a brother regressive pressive strategy, as we have denounced.

Since 2018 / 5000, arbitrary detention has been recorded in Nicaragua.

This arrest often violence warrantless and politically motivate target activist, religious leader, journalist and opposition fever or who are considered an opposition fevers.

The repression has been institute institutionalised through coordinated effort involving police, judiciary and legislative bodies.

Furthermore, legal remedies are systematically denied, victim are often held without official records and families are denied access to legal remedy authority.

Finally, ignore or mislead relative and lawyers obstructing obvious corpus petition and hiding detainees location, further making worse the psychological and physical harm inflicted.

Also, the group is is it's one to raise concerned about the targeting the in country children exposed and parents of excite Nicaragua in central is centred to the transmission and repression strategy that John were mentioning at the beginning.

But we want to all attention about the most vulnerable member of the families which are children's and older people.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you everyone for those opening remarks.

Now we can open the floor to questions.

We can start with those online.

If you could please identify yourself in the media outlet that you work for, we can start with FA.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, thank you very much for the briefing.

[Other language spoken]

My question is regarding your recommendation.

In the report, you said that Member States should bring in Nicaragua before the International Court of Justice.

So I wonder if any Member States have already expressed interest in in doing that and also if you consider these more appropriate channel for accountability in comparison with others like the International Criminal Court or the national jurisdictions.

Thank you very much.

Yes, thank you very much.

We have been discussing the option of bringing a case before the ICJ with a number of states.

I think there's a general recognition that this is something that needs to be done.

We've had meetings as a group with with with officials from a number of states.

I think the question really is who should who should do it?

Obviously it has to be a state party to the, to the convention, but we've a, a number of states have said this needs to be done.

The question now is, is, is, is who should do it?

Obviously, bringing a case, unlike Nicaragua, which is brought, as I said, 9 cases before the ICJ in, in in recent years, they're only a few cases brought every year.

And bringing a case obviously has diplomatic, financial ramifications.

We're very hopeful that among the many states who believe that this needs to be done, there will be a state or or a group of states that will do it.

It's obviously only one of the paths to, to accountability.

But we think first of all as that because the ICJ is so respected in Nicaragua, it, it's part of the, the DNA of, of, of the Nicaraguan government, of the Sandinista government which brought the historic case in 1984 and which brought a case last year against Germany for, for regarding arms transfers to Israel.

So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a body that Nicaragua respects.

And we believe that a case that is brought would be very easy to prove based directly on the decrees, the constitution itself.

This is not something that requires a lot of gathering of evidence.

It is clear Nicaragua by its, in its constitution, in its laws, has a policy of stripping the nationality of people who are considered to be enemies of of of of the homeland.

There are other avenues.

Obviously universal jurisdiction is is another one.

There's, there are cases in, there's a case in Argentina, they're actually arrest warrants against Daniel Ortega and Rosario Mario and, and, and, and dozens of other Nicaraguan officials in Argentina.

And we, we encourage States and we encourage them in, in our reports to use international jurisdictions.

The International Criminal Court is also a possibility.

Nicaragua, as you know, is not a state party to the International Criminal Court, but based on the jurisprudence developed in the case of Myanmar and Bangladesh, the crime that we have documented of deportation of, of of Nicaraguans that begins in Nicaragua but ends in countries like Guatemala and elsewhere that our state's parties, this is also an option for the prosecutor or for states parties to take forward.

[Other language spoken]

Did you want to add anything or?

Well, just to add that while the international system is complementary in terms of state responsibility and individual responsibility when it comes up to systems criminality.

So what we're facing here is, is not ordinary crimes, neither something that happens by chance, but it is systematic and based on systems criminality.

So you can address this through different pathways.

There's a criminal law, individual responsibility, there's responsibility under international law on stage.

And there is in between lots of mechanisms that are that are prepared to respond to this, be it sanctions individually or targeted sanctions on sectors, be it reactions as we have addressed in our recommendations of the international financial system regarding issues that might be addressed by international multilateral bodies beyond the Human Rights Council or international courts.

So there's a lot of possibilities to address this.

Well beyond having a case on an individual basis or bringing a state to the ICJ.

And we would like to see the international community to make use of the whole portfolio at hand of the international community to address the situation that we are facing since many years now in Nicaragua and which has not improved but has gotten worse.

Thank you very much.

Antonio has another follow up question from FA.

[Other language spoken]

It's a different question because in the report you also mentioned the progressive isolation of Nicaragua this year.

It's out of many international organisations and even the Human Rights Council.

I wonder how this is affecting your work and and what's the importance of having Nicaragua in the Council, even criticising your report?

[Other language spoken]

Well, as you all know, in the Human Rights Council there are 47 member states.

Nicaragua hasn't been a member state.

It has a possibility, nevertheless has been a country addressed by resolutions of the Human Rights Council to contest.

They haven't done this today.

This is 1 consequence.

SO1 consequence is that they do not have now from here in Geneva because they have withdrawn from it unilaterally.

There is another forum which we will addressed on the 30th of October, which is the General Assembly, where we will brief the Third Committee on our findings and where Nicaragua will not be able to withdraw without withdrawing from the whole organisation, which will not be the case.

So the consequences for us are not really impactful, more impactful for Nicaragua in fact.

And let me tell you as an additional point that as I addressed in my opening remarks, what is really concerning is not only that they are withdrawing from the international system, but they're actively and aggressively using and abusing the international system on the other side.

[Other language spoken]

So what one should keep in mind that there's a dual strategy of the international within the international system by Nicaragua that is really of concern for the international community and should be addressed by the international community as a whole.

[Other language spoken]

Do we have any more questions online or in the room?

[Other language spoken]

If not, that will bring us to the end of this press conference unless you guys have any more, any additional comments to make.

[Other language spoken]

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

And thank you for joining us here in Geneva today.

[Other language spoken]

HRC Press Conference: Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua - 23 September 2025