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“Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.”
Albert Einstein
Little has been reported in the news about Nicaragua recently. Now on the edge of a civil war, 2018 was not an easy year for Nicaragua. 18th April 2018 marked the beginning of a continuous and irrepressible blood shed. Students and pensioners started peacefully protesting against the reforms on Social Security, which had been previously issued by president Ortega. Such reforms provided a reduction of pension payments by 5%, as well as higher contribution rates for both employers and employees. Nicaragua being the poorest country in Central America and the second poorest in the western hemisphere, it is not surprising that citizens took to the streets in order to protest and to be heard.
Although protests started peacefully, they were not met with the same approach by Ortega’s regime. They were violently suppressed by pro-government groups and police forces, yet the government not only denied its own arbitrary use of force on citizens, but also issued censorship and criminalised protests. To this day, ten months later, the conditions in Nicaragua have not yet improved. According to data collected by the UN Human Rights Office, within the first four months of protests, approximately 300 deaths and 2000 people injured were reported. Additionally, 300 people were prosecuted for serious crimes, and numerous arbitrary detentions and instances of torture were also reported.
Journalists have been the most targeted, being physically attacked and receiving death threats. In addition to censorship, Nicaragua has again violated human rights by adopting the so-called ‘contempt laws’, whereby public officials cannot be criticised. For instance, the Nicaraguan journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, who has been openly critical to Ortega’s tyranny, seems to have already served his sentence. In December 2018, the headquarters of the website of which he was the editor, was raided by police officers. Subsequently, he found himself forced to flee to Costa Rica in order to save his life and fulfil his duties as a journalist.
Chamorro’s decision to flee is not an isolated case. Although Nicaragua only represents a small drop compared to the exodus of over two million Venezuelans, Nicaragua’s neighbouring countries (especially Costa Rica) have increasingly witnessed thousands of people fleeing from Nicaragua in order to escape persecution. However, those asylum-seekers do not live in the safest environment in Costa Rica either. Indeed, they fear that they could be intercepted and found by the Nicaraguan authorities, in addition to facing xenophobic attitudes that could arise.
Furthermore, the enactment of a new law – namely, Ley Contra el Lavado de Activos, el Financiamento al Terrosismo y el Financiamiento a la Proliferacion de Armas de Destruccion Masiva’ – has also contributed to the existing authoritarian regime. Indeed, in accordance to this law, anyone could be a terrorist. Ortega is trying to proffer the justification that, in order to maintain public order and protect national security, those violent measures against protesters were necessary.
Violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms are however not limited to journalists. Victims of protests have been denied access to medical care and been prevented from filing complaints to the police. Not only are the police effectively in favour of the government, but Ortega has also taken precautions in relation to the justice system. For example, the current absence of an independent judiciary has meant that domestic remedies have been ineffective and ex-officio investigations denied, therefore resulting in failure of accountability of many human rights violations on the part of the state. This has been exacerbated by Ortega’s recent decision to shut down nine NGOs and deprive them of their legal status.
For Nicaragua, it seems impossible to find peace. President Ortega has arbitrarily removed the lawfulness of contrasting political parties, NGOs and all communication means. This dreadful situation is not limited to threats, attacks and deaths of dissenters, but it is also a situation causing a refugee crisis and an approaching civil war.
“Asesino”: “murderer” is the name Ortega has been given. His government changed the rules of the game – opting to govern through violence, repression and fear. Will the international community be able to stop this massacre?