Deaths in custody and enforced disappearances increase concern over systematic repression in Nicaragua

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Deaths in custody and enforced disappearances of political opponents

On 19th August 2025, police arbitrarily detained Carlos Cárdenas Zepeda at his home in Managua. Cárdenas, who served as legal adviser to the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, was targeted for his perceived political role. His relatives received no information on his whereabouts for 12 days before authorities summoned them on 30th August to identify his body.

His death followed a similar case days earlier. On 18th July 2025, Mauricio Alonso Petri was arbitrarily detained in Jinotepe. His family was informed after 38 days of enforced disappearance that he had died in custody. Officials compelled relatives to recognise and immediately bury his body under a heavy police presence. In both cases, relatives said they had been denied information on the detainees’ health or the causes of death and faced intimidation intended to prevent public funerals or religious ceremonies.

Human rights organisations have linked these deaths to the administration’s increasing use of enforced disappearance as a tactic against political opponents. Since mid-July 2025, after the anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, security forces have carried out widespread raids, arbitrarily detaining at least 33 people, including entire families. Authorities have refused to disclose the whereabouts or health status of detainees, including a 12-year-old girl. Since 2019, at least six people have died in state custody in Nicaragua.

On 26th September 2025, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemned the deaths of Cárdenas and Petri, both older persons arbitrarily detained for their political views. The IACHR urged the authorities to guarantee the life and integrity of all detainees, release political prisoners, and end the ongoing repression. It further warned that these incidents reflect a broader pattern of arbitrary detentions, short-term disappearances, and denial of due process, including lack of access to legal defence and the concealment of case files. The IACHR has repeatedly documented detention conditions in Nicaragua that may amount to torture, particularly affecting older persons and vulnerable groups.

As of 30th August 2025, the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners in Nicaragua documented 73 people held for political reasons, including 14 women and 59 men, and 33 people reported as disappeared.

Arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance of political opponents

On 17th May 2025, officers from the National Police’s Directorate of Special Operations (DOEP), together with other agents, arbitrarily detained Aníbal Martín Rivas Reed at his home without presenting a warrant. During the operation, police searched his property and confiscated personal documents, including passports and driving licences.

According to information submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the arrest occurred during a weekend of coordinated police operations in northern Nicaragua, when at least 14 individuals, including former mayors, councillors and ex-military officers associated with dissolved opposition parties, were detained. Rivas Reed was reportedly targeted for being labelled a political opponent and “traitor” by the authorities.

Following his detention, on 18th May 2025, relatives inquired about his whereabouts at the Matagalpa police station, where officers informed them that he had been transferred to Managua. The following day, family members searched three detention centres, the District III Police Station, the Directorate of Judicial Assistance (El Chipote), and the Jorge Navarro National Penitentiary (La Modelo), but officials denied his presence in all facilities. Authorities also refused to accept medication for his pre-existing health conditions, including degenerative arthritis, clinical depression and chronic insomnia, for which he requires daily treatment with clonazepam.

On 24th June 2025, the IACHR granted precautionary measures to Rivas Reed, finding that he faces a grave and urgent situation and that his rights to life and personal integrity are at imminent risk. The IACHR noted that his relatives have no communication with him, are unaware of his legal situation or place of detention, and cannot verify his health or access to medical treatment. It stressed that the lack of official information and contact aggravates the risk of irreparable harm, underscoring the broader context of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions targeting perceived political opponents in Nicaragua.

In a separate case, on 17th July 2025, officers from DOEP in Jinotepe, Carazo, arbitrarily detained five members of the Palacios Vargas family, Rudy Antonio Palacios Vargas, Jessica María Palacios Vargas, Pedro José López Calero, Olga María Lara Rojas, and Armando José Bermúdez Mojica, without presenting arrest warrants. Police officers, some masked and armed, raided their homes, confiscating computers and mobile phones. Witnesses reported that Pedro López was assaulted during his arrest.

According to information submitted to the IACHR, the detentions were retaliation for the family’s perceived opposition to the government. The five detainees are members of an evangelical Christian family from Jinotepe, where Rudy Palacios Vargas serves as pastor of the La Roca Church. Relatives stated that the family had been under continuous police surveillance since returning from exile, with visits escalating from monthly to weekly inspections by early 2025, amounting to de facto house arrest.

The detention occurred amid a coordinated police operation in which at least eight opposition figures were detained in Jinotepe. A family acquaintance detained in the same operation was later returned dead on 25th August 2025, after 38 days of disappearance (see above). Relatives of the five detainees said they had no information on their whereabouts. Police in Jinotepe, Managua and Granada denied holding them, and their names did not appear in the Nicarao national judicial database.

On 27th July 2025, local media reported that the detainees had been accused of treason and conspiracy to undermine national integrity and were allegedly held in the Granada National Penitentiary. However, when relatives went to the facility the next day, officials denied their presence, leaving their detention location and legal status unconfirmed.

On 16th September 2025, the IACHR granted precautionary measures in favour of the five people, determining that they face a serious and urgent risk of irreparable harm to their rights to life and personal integrity. The Commission noted that their families had no communication with them, no access to judicial proceedings or legal defence, and no confirmation of their place or conditions of detention. The State failed to provide any information to the IACHR or the families despite repeated requests.

Transnational repression targeting exiled activists and their families

In September 2025, the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) released a report documenting an intensifying and deliberate practice by the government to silence and punish real or perceived opponents and their relatives. According to the GHREN, state repression has evolved since 2018 from domestic persecution of critics into a systematic pattern of transnational repression.

Key findings include:

• Arbitrary deprivation of nationality: Since February 2023, authorities have arbitrarily stripped at least 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, labelling them “traitors to the homeland”. Victims include political leaders, journalists, human rights defenders, and members of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations. This measure, applied retroactively and without due process, has rendered many stateless and deprived of legal protection.
• Prohibition of entry into one’s own country: The Government has banned at least 318 citizens from re-entering Nicaragua between June 2018 and August 2025, including family members of exiled dissidents. Victims are often notified by airlines or border officials without written documentation, leaving them stranded abroad, separated from relatives, and in legal limbo.
• Refusal to issue or renew passports and erasure of civil records: Consulates routinely deny or delay passport renewals for opponents and their relatives, leaving many de facto stateless. In most of the cases documented, the victims were in Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain and the USA, though underreporting suggests it may also occur elsewhere. The authorities also delete or alter civil records, including birth and marriage certificates, and revoke academic or professional titles, effectively erasing people from public registries and stripping them of identity and qualifications.
• Confiscation of property and economic dispossession: Hundreds of homes, businesses, pensions, and bank accounts belonging to perceived opponents have been confiscated, often without legal basis.
• Surveillance, threats and harassment: A vast intelligence network involving the army, police, and the Nicaraguan Telecommunications and Postal Institute (TELCOR) monitors and intimidates exiled Nicaraguans. Victims face constant surveillance, online smear campaigns, hacking, and death threats, producing widespread fear, isolation, and self-censorship across the diaspora. Nicaraguans reported being photographed, followed, harassed, approached by unknown persons and threatened while abroad, particularly in neighbouring Costa Rica and Honduras, but also in Belgium, Guatemala, Spain and the USA.
• Physical violence: Exiled dissidents have been targeted with assaults and killings abroad, including the June 2025 murder of Roberto Samcam in Costa Rica.
• Abuse of international cooperation mechanisms: The Government has misused INTERPOL notices, false passport alerts, and anti-money laundering frameworks to restrict opponents’ movement and financial access abroad.
• Proxy punishment of relatives: Relatives of exiled dissidents endure police surveillance, harassment, arbitrary detention, and property confiscation. Authorities have also altered children’s birth records and restricted their right to travel, weaponising family ties to silence critics and instil fear.

Expression

Exiled journalist receives death threats

On 23rd June 2025, media outlets reported that journalist Luis Galeano, director of the online programme Café con Voz, received death threats, allegedly from top officials. According to reports, the threats occurred amid a growing wave of intimidation following the murder of an opposition leader in Costa Rica earlier that month, who had been a regular contributor to Galeano’s programme.

Galeano, known for reporting on corruption, has lived in exile in the United States since 2019, after authorities issued a warrant for his arrest and police raided the news channel where he previously worked, detaining two of its executives in 2018.

Costa Rican journalist expelled from Nicaragua

On 5th September, authorities detained and expelled Costa Rican journalist Adrián Quirós Araya as he travelled to cover a football match between the national teams of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. According to media reports, Quirós Araya was stopped during border procedures, where officials confiscated his passport and interrogated him. He was later informed that his expulsion was due to a social media post made more than a decade ago, criticising President Daniel Ortega, a post that immigration officers reportedly showed him during questioning.

Sandinista lawmaker launches misogynistic attacks against women journalists

In August 2025, National Assembly member Moisés Absalón Pastora, a former Liberal Party figure now aligned with the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), publicly launched a verbal attack against independent media and journalists, using sexist and degrading language.

During his televised editorial on the state-run Canal 6, Pastora directed misogynistic insults against women journalists Jennifer Ortiz of Nicaragua Investiga and Lucía Pineda Ubau of 100% Noticias, calling them “dirty”, “toxic”, and “terrorist”. He also accused international and national media, including CNN, The New York Times, El País, and Caracol Radio, of spreading “disinformation” about Nicaragua.

Legal experts cited by 100% Noticias argued that Pastora’s remarks may constitute violations of Law No. 779 (Comprehensive Law Against Violence Towards Women), which penalises expressions that undermine women’s dignity, as well as defamation and slander under the Penal Code.

Both Ortiz and Pineda publicly condemned the remarks, describing them as part of a broader campaign of gender-based harassment and hate speech used to discredit women in the media. Ortiz noted that Pastora’s rhetoric singled out female journalists with personal and physical insults not directed at their male counterparts.

Pineda, who was arbitrarily detained in 2018 alongside journalist Miguel Mora when police and paramilitary groups raided and confiscated 100% Noticias, denounced the attacks as an extension of the regime’s systematic campaign to intimidate the independent press.

Harassment of YouTubers and online content creators

On 21st May 2025, South African travel vlogger Kurt Caz, who has over 3.85 million subscribers, was retained and interrogated for four hours by police while filming in Managua’s Central Park, Avenida Bolívar and the Oriental Market. Caz later reported that an officer who saw him recording may have alerted the police. After his interrogation, he reported feeling unsafe at his hotel, citing constant surveillance.

Other foreign online content creators faced similar intimidation. In April 2025, Peruvian YouTuber Andy Tirado (Gravedad 11) was harassed and held for six hours at the southern border before being allowed entry, after officials inspected his online content and demanded a full travel itinerary. In September 2024, fellow Peruvian creator Henry Alexander Guillón was denied entry and questioned via WhatsApp by an alleged migration officer before being told he was barred from travelling to Nicaragua.

According to the Inter-American Press Association, in 2025, harassment of international YouTubers and digital content creators became increasingly visible and systematic, reflecting the authorities' view of these independent voices as a threat to their control over information.

Independent media outlet targeted in cyberattack

On 10th July 2025, the independent digital outlet Nicaragua Actual reported suffering a cyberattack that blocked access to its email accounts and YouTube channel, which has over 100,000 subscribers. The platform, created in 2019 in response to government censorship, operates primarily through YouTube as its only channel for publishing news about Nicaragua.

The outlet described the attack as a deliberate attempt to silence independent reporting and restrict access to reliable information on national events.

Closure and restructuring of independent media outlets continue

On 30th June 2025, Radio Centro 870 AM, a station with more than three decades of broadcasting in Chontales, ceased its AM transmissions. The outlet later announced it would continue operating on digital platforms and FM, but reports of a change in ownership and the cancellation of long-standing programmes raised concerns about potential editorial interference and loss of independence under the new management.

According to press freedom organisations, at least 53 media outlets and 24 news or opinion programmes have been forcibly closed since 2018. Since Daniel Ortega’s return to power in 2007, a total of 61 media outlets have been shut down, many with their assets confiscated by the state.

FLED warns of growing exile and expansion of “news deserts” across Nicaragua

In its third quarterly report for 2025, published in early October 2025, the Foundation for the Freedom of Expression and Democracy (Fundación por la Libertad de Expresión y Democracia, FLED) reported that between July and September 2025, 11 journalists and media workers were forced to leave the country, bringing the total number of exiled media professionals to 304 since 2018. FLED noted that “exile has ceased to be a refuge and has become a space marked by insecurity and lack of protection”, as international relocation and financial support programmes for journalists have been sharply reduced.

The organisation also recorded 31 attacks and violations against journalists and media outlets during the period, confirming what it described as a structural environment of repression, where censorship, stigmatisation and digital harassment have become state policy. One of its key findings was the use of economic precarity as a tool of coercion, with reports of political operatives and police agents offering “jobs” or “protection” to unemployed journalists in exchange for information. Those who refused allegedly faced threats of imprisonment, confiscation or ongoing surveillance.

FLED further warned that 11 of Nicaragua’s departments now lack independent media, turning 65 per cent of the national territory into what it called “information deserts”. The organisation attributed this to a systematic dismantling of the press through harassment, intimidation, confiscations, imprisonment and forced exile, resulting in an almost complete silencing of independent reporting.

The report also denounced the enforced disappearance of journalists Fabiola Tercero, Elsberth D’Anda, and Leo Catalino Cárcamo, whose cases remain unresolved. It highlighted that Tercero’s disappearance has now exceeded 14 months without any official response, deepening the suffering of families and perpetuating impunity.

In the digital space, FLED documented persistent cyberattacks, account breaches and hate campaigns, particularly targeting women journalists.