Nicaragua Exits U.N. Human Rights Council After Experts Called for Action Against Communist Regime

Nicaragua on Thursday announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council in response to a recently published report by a group of U.N. experts calling for international action against the worsening repression led by dictator Daniel Ortega and his wife and “co-president” Rosario Murillo.

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke justified the country’s withdrawal from the U.N. Human Rights Council and its related institutions in a public letter in which the official accused the Council of turning into a “sounding board for those who attacked the peace and tranquility of the country.”

Jaentschke, speaking on behalf of the Ortega regime, stressed that “we do not see ourselves as being part of or complicit in violations against sovereignty” of Nicaragua.

“The report of the self-styled Group of Experts, which Nicaragua does not recognize, as well as previous reports, statements, communiqués and updates from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, are evidence of the double standards and politicization of each of these mechanisms, which daily instrumentalize human rights, using them as a pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of States and disrespect sovereignty,” Jaentschke wrote.

The United Nations established a Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) in 2022 and tasked it to investigate human rights violations by the Ortega regime since April 2018, when thousands of Nicaraguans flocked to the streets to call for an end of communism. Ortega responded to the peaceful protests by unleashing a brutal persecution campaign that left more than 300 people dead.

Since its establishment, the GHREN has published several reports detailing the Ortega regime’s ongoing brutal crackdown of dissidents and persecution of Christianity. In 2024, the group of experts denounced that the Ortega regime banned nearly 8,000 Catholic processions between 2023 and 2024 and subjected members of the Church to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, as well as physical and mental torture. Ortega has waged a “war” against the Nicaraguan Catholic Church as punishment for the Church’s support of the 2018 anti-communist protesters.

In its latest report, published Wednesday, the GHREN warned that the Ortega regime has dismantled all remaining checks on its power and has systematically executed a strategy to cement total control of Nicaragua through severe human rights violations. As a result, the group of experts called for decisive international action to address the communist regime’s violations.

GHREN stressed that Ortega and his wife and “co-president” Murillo have transformed Nicaragua into an authoritarian state where no independent institutions remain while dissidents and the general population face constant persecution and threats of forced exile, as well as economic retaliation.

“Since 2018, Ortega and Murillo have moved step by step to entrench their total control,” GHREN Chair Jan Simon said. “The state and the ruling Sandinista party have virtually fused into a unified machine of repression with domestic and transnational impact.”

“Ortega and Murillo operate a wide intelligence machine, surveilling the population and selecting the targets for the violation of rights, acting as ‘the eyes and ears’ that allow to obtain and maintain total control over people,” she continued.

The report makes special mention of a recent constitutional reform passed by the Ortega regime that established the office of a “co-president,” presently occupied by Ortega’s wife. The reforms, the experts explained, effectively turned all branches of government into mere “bodies” at the service of the Nicaraguan presidency. The experts described the reform as a “final blow to the rule of law.”

The experts also stated in the report that they were able to, for the first time, conclude that the Nicaraguan army participated alongside the nation’s police and paramilitary forces loyal to Ortega in the brutal dissident crackdown against the 2018 anti-communist protesters.

The GHREN also denounced that the Ortega regime has expanded the arbitrary stripping of Nicaraguan citizenship from dissidents and forced seizure of their private property assets. In recent years, the Ortega regime has punished hundreds of dissidents by stripping them of their nationality, rendering them stateless persons in clear violation of international law.

The U.N. experts detailed that it documented 135 cases of political prisoners banished from Nicaragua and stripped of their nationality, for a total of 452 Nicaraguans who have been subject to said punishment. One of the most renowned cases of Nicaraguan citizens banished from their country and stripped of their nationality is Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa.

Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison on “treason” charges in 2023 and stripped of his nationality. The Ortega regime banished Álvarez to the Vatican in January 2024 after spending over 500 days in prison.

“We are seeing the methodical repression of anyone who dares to challenge Ortega and Murillo’s grip on power. This is a Government at war with its own people,” GHREN member Ariela Peralta said.

The group of experts asserted that it has compiled a list of individuals believed to hold responsibility for the human rights violations committed in Nicaragua alongside Ortega and Murillo. The list, the experts said, will be presented to the Nicaraguan regime and made public on April 4.

The experts also urged the international community to take decisive action against the Ortega regime and warned, “inaction will only embolden the regime and prolong the suffering of the Nicaraguan people.” The report further urged legal action against Nicaragua at the International Court of Justice for violations of the Convention against Torture and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, as well as expanding sanctions against those responsible for the ongoing repression.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.