UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : HRC - Press conference: Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua

[Other language spoken]

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us at this press conference with the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua.

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

The group released its latest report this morning and will present their findings to the Council on Monday, the 16th of March.

We'll start off with opening remarks by each of the experts and then we'll open the floor to questions.

We'll start with the the Group's chair, Jan Michael Simon, and then our two colleagues who will be joining us online, Mr Reed Brody and Miss Ariela Peralta Distefano.

And with that we'll begin.

Please go ahead and let's start.

Yeah, thank you, Todd.

Always a pleasure to be with you and your excellent team in Geneva.

Several very important elements of the human rights violations stand out in our new report.

My colleagues will go into more detail on this in and outside Nicaragua.

Allow me now to shed light on yet another very important aspect of the violations.

4 years ago, at the beginning of its mandate, the group of human rights experts on Nicaragua announced to look into the link between human rights violations and corruption.

Today we can present initial findings.

These findings are based on the privileged access to a vast amount of data, documents, budget records, emails and payment vouchers, as well as insider interviews.

Our approach is uncommon.

Anti corruption mainstream focuses on the misuse of entrusted power for private gain.

Instead, our new report reveals A structural dimension of corruption in the Nicaraguan state, that is, corruption as a tool for financing political repression.

Public funds earmarked for social assistance and operational expenses have been systematically diverted to sustain violent security operations and pro government armed groups.

This information has allowed us to reconstruct and the operational logic of the corrupt financing of the violations.

We document for the first time the connection between diversion of public funds, parallel party structure, accounting cover up and systematic human rights violations.

In the broader picture, our new report shows that corruption can be a tool of state violence that is not just for personal greed.

And on a practical and more technical note, our report provides a basis for accountability in both anti corruption and human rights matters.

It offers a concrete routes for investigations, identifying patterns and cover up mechanisms.

I would also like to briefly highlight another innovation at the end of the report.

For the first time, we have included a comprehensive catalogue of recommendations to the government.

This catalogue is intended as a road map to guide the necessary first steps toward the peaceful restoration of democracy in Nicaragua.

We will monitor progress and we stand ready to support on the ground the necessary human rights reforms in Nicaragua.

[Other language spoken]

OK, the other experts could go ahead and read their statements.

Hi, thank you very much.

Can everybody hear me?

Can you hear me, Todd, can you hear me?

I hear you perfectly right.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, everyone.

[Other language spoken]

So as as Jan Michael mentioned, one of the principal findings of our report relates to transnational repression.

And we have found that the state and the ruling Sandinista party have fused into a single repressive machine that doesn't stop at the border.

The Co presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Mario, have built an apparatus that hunts down dissidents wherever they flee.

They have political intelligence which identifies targets and operational units which persecute those targets.

Nicaraguan diplomatic missions in at least five countries harbour military intelligence personnel.

Most Nicaraguan ambassadors also serve as so-called political secretaries of the Sandinista Party, reporting directly to Co President Mario.

Their tools include the surveillance of exiles, doxing, the abuse of Interpol mechanisms and physical intimidation, and possibly even murder.

The most disturbing case, of course, is the killing last year of Major Roberto, A retired Major Roberto Sankam, a government critic, shot dead at his home in Costa Rica last June.

Investigations are still ongoing, but we can't rule out that this killing is part of a broader pattern of targeting violations against Nicaraguans in exile.

The group is previously identified by name 54 individuals who bear prima facie responsibility for these crimes and violations.

Our investigations now permit us to name the current Co Foreign Minister, Waldrak Jonsky, who from 2021 to 2023 was part of a high level decision making group directing Nicaragua's transnational repression strategy.

He helped run political intelligence against exiled Nicaraguans when he served as a senior presidential advisor.

Embedded in Nicaraguan diplomatic missions in Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica, Nicaragua has become a place of surveillance and enforced silence for those who remain within its borders, while those who dare to resist face statelessness, exile and persecution that follows them wherever in the world they go.

No one is beyond the reach of this repressive machine.

[Other language spoken]

And now we'll move to the statement from the last expert.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

It's a pleasure to be with you, all of you.

Today I'm going to address 2 item of the findings of the report.

The first one is the gender dimension of victimisation.

The second one is the persistence of serious violation, in particular arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances.

The regarding the first, the parents of gender violation are part of an intentional repressive strategy with the specific purpose of punishes women and feminist movements for their long standing leadership as autonomous political actors, including their leadership in community, students and campus, you know, organising and their demands for social justice and equality.

This targeting documented by the group thus reflects a calculated effort to neutralise actors whose historical legitimacy and organisational capacity were perceived as a threat to the government tracking of a total control over the state and the population.

Police and prison officials specifically target detained LTBTIQ plus person using sexualized humanization and verbal abuse against their gender identity or sexual orientation, including degrading as slurs to dehumanise them.

Such a stereotype serving not only to punish individuals for their political opposition but also to discipline them for their entity perceive as transgressive.

In addition, the mass closure of organisation dedicated to defending and protecting the right of human and diversity community cast a structural step back in gender equality and left many victims without safety Nets.

Regarding the tender dimension international repression, women with caregiving responsibility face greater level of change ability as they were forced to financially support their family during displacement, often without access to formal employment or support network.

In the case of older women deprived of their nationality, property and or pension, the situation was particularly critical.

In the case of conditional and after the same than women, this impacts can be exacerbated by pre-existing structured and inequality, including limitation in access to information, public services and protection mechanism.

Now I'm going to address the second point.

As the government advanced to what its objective of absolute control, pattern of human rights abuse evolved.

While extradition, execution and mass arrest ended after the protest, targeted arbitrary detention has continued alongside and for disappearances.

The group has documented 6 deaths in custody since April 2018, two of which occur in 22025.

The group has continues to document a significant number of cases of enforced disappearances of individual detained on political grounds.

The group has verified them for disappear of 75 persons, among them 15 women for periods regarding from several weeks to over 2 year.

The fate and what about of nine of these persons, seven men and two women remain unknown.

Thank you very much.

First, we'll go to do we have any questions from the room?

[Other language spoken]

If you could please identify yourself in the media outlet you work for and as well if you could identify, identify which of the three experts you would like to pose your question to.

[Other language spoken]

Hello, good afternoon.

I am Antonio Brotto, A journalist for Spanish news agency FA.

My question is for any of the members of the Commission that can answers it.

I would like to know if the Commission has noticed changes in the patterns of abuse this year following the fall of a regime aligned with Nicaragua, such as Venezuela, and also the intensification of the US blockade against another another foreign regime like Cuba.

I also want to know if you think that the pressure that from United States on these countries can increase the the violence and repression in in a country like Nicaragua can can can become over defensive and, and, and the abuses can rise in a, in a moment like this.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for your question regarding the direct link on the situation that is ongoing in Venezuela.

Since January 3 of this year, what we have been seeing in Nicaragua were actions of repression against people supporting the intervention in Venezuela by the US Armed Forces.

At least 60 persons, as far as we have access to to the information, not having not being able to be on the ground, have been detained.

But I'd like also to point to what has been the worst side of this.

On the 10th of January, many, not many, but a couple of political detainees were released.

So on the one side people were detained and on the other side political prisoners were released.

And this leads me to your second question, whether pressure from outside, be it by Member States or by multilateral organisations, might increase human rights violations.

We strongly support any kind of pressure based on other rule of law, human rights and within the framework of the international obligations of Nicaragua.

And it is in within this framework that we point to those responsible and encourage the international community to hold the these individuals accountable, including also in terms of responsibility of the state, the State of Nicaragua.

This is a common approach to situations as we witnessed in Nicaragua.

And you can be sure that responsible governments and individuals, as we as individual experts, exert this in the manner that is geared to a better situation of human rights in Nicaragua, not on the reverse.

[Other language spoken]

Did any of the experts have anything to add on that?

OK, Mr Brody, please go ahead.

[Other language spoken]

I mean, I, I would certainly just agree with what with what young Michael said.

I mean, the, the, the recovery of, of democracy in Nicaragua will not come from events in other countries, but from a genuine process based on, on respect for the rule of law.

You know, our mandate is to document human rights violations.

As human rights experts, we've been calling on countries to exert pressure on on Nicaragua.

We believe that the international response, as John said, has to be guided by international law, the protection of human rights and, and support for victims, as, as John mentioned, I mean, there have been arrests and there have been releases, but the basic structural aspects of the repression in Nicaragua have not changed one bit in the last, in the last year.

I mean, they, they have, they have only only gotten worse.

We have only seen more arbitrary detentions, more cases of disappearances.

So the structures of repression have not changed one bit.

[Other language spoken]

We'll go to the next question online from Lawrence Ciero from the Swiss News Agency.

Yeah, thank you for the press conference.

Maybe it's it's conveyed to read broadly as you mentioned the list which was released last year.

So now you add on top of the 54 names, the one of that call Foreign Minister, the question would be, are there other people that you, you have identified in between that would deserve to be on the list and and so where do we stand in the number in terms of number of people on on that list?

[Other language spoken]

The list that we published last year with the 54 names is a product of at that time three years of investigative work.

To the extent that we'll we'll proceed on our different investigative lines, we will most probably come up with additional names at the top of the chain of command.

There will be less probability of adding more names because what you can see at present in the list of the 54 is the top of the chain of command.

Maybe two or three names are still missing, but at the mid level and on the operational level, we will definitely come up with additional names if our mandate next year is going to be renewed.

But still this year I'm sure that we will come up with other names.

[Other language spoken]

Do the any of the experts have anything else to add on that?

[Other language spoken]

If we don't have any more questions online or in the room, that will bring us to the end of this press conference.

Thank you very much for joining us.

[Other language spoken]