Nicaraguan dictatorship issues new laws that criminalize dissent, increasing control over everything and everyone

A recently approved package of legal reforms in Nicaragua has become yet another tool in the political persecution of critics of leader Daniel Ortega, both inside the country and abroad. The reforms also intensify the regime’s pressure on the Catholic Church.

These reforms to the Criminal Code allow the prosecution of those who oppose Ortega from abroad, while changes to the Cybercrime Law pave the way for convicting people based on their social media posts.

Two other laws were also amended. One imposes taxes on churches and the other limits NGOs to cooperation with state entities (Ortega has already closed about 5,500 NGOs and confiscated their assets).

Camila Ormar, a lawyer from the NGO Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil), told AFP that these initiatives “seek to create a legal framework that legitimizes new practices that violate human rights.”

“These reforms could be used to further intensify the persecution and repression of Nicaraguans, including in exile,” said Christian Salazar Volkmann, head of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In an annual report on the situation in Nicaragua, the High Commissioner’s office warned of a “serious” deterioration under the government of Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo. The report highlighted arbitrary arrests of opponents, as well as torture and ill-treatment of prisoners.

This report, which was discussed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in September, was rejected by Nicaragua’s Attorney General Wendy Morales.

Ortega’s supporters argue that this reform package strengthens institutions and makes it possible to fight crime at a “transnational” level.

“These reforms aim to strengthen the work of our country’s institutions responsible for combating transnational organized crime,” María Auxiliadora Martínez, a pro-government deputy, said during a parliamentary session.

However, Cejil’s lawyer emphasized that “it is not the first time in Nicaragua that laws have been reformed to criminalize those considered opponents or dissident voices.”

“The laws that Nicaragua has adopted or reformed must comply with human rights treaties recognized by the state,” Ormar stressed.

Ortega’s regime has intensified its repression since opposition protests in 2018, which killed more than 300 people in just three months, according to the UN. Since then, thousands of Nicaraguans have fled into exile and hundreds have been expelled, with their property confiscated.

The 78-year-old former guerrilla who ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s and returned to power in 2007 claims the protests were a Washington-sponsored coup attempt.

The reformed Penal Code imposes penalties of up to 30 prison sentences for persons who commit “crimes against the state or its institutions,” both in Nicaragua and abroad.

Meanwhile, the cybercrime law imposes penalties for social media posts and smartphone apps that cause “alarm,” with penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

According to Cejil, these types of sanctions are “incompatible with the principle of legality as enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights.”

Prosecuting people outside the country will lead to “trials in absentia,” Cejil’s chief warned.

The reform of the cybercrime law has tightened a regulation in force since 2020 and often criticized as a “gag law,” which has led to the prosecution and arrest of many Nicaraguan opponents and journalists for allegedly “spreading false news.”

Nicaraguan lawyer Salvador Marenco, exiled in Costa Rica, told AFP “These crimes have provoked the denationalization of several people,” referring to Ortega stripping the nationality of 451 exiled opponents.

Marenco claimed that this “policy of transnational repression” is Ortega’s response to sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union.

Former Nicaraguan Ambassador Arturo McFields told AFP that Ortega is trying to use these reforms to “justify his misdeeds and his crimes and also to give legal character to his repressive actions.”

“They first carry out these actions through an act and then try to structure a legal framework,” added the former ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), who is in exile in the United States.