Nicaragua has increased human rights violations and persecution of the opposition as it ratchets up its efforts to stifle dissent, a United Nations group of experts monitoring the country said Tuesday.
The Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, that the government continues increasing pressure on human rights defenders to force them to leave the country.
That persecution has extended to the education sector, where the government has systematically cancelled the legal status of private universities and seized their campuses.
In February, the Nicaraguan government put 222 prisoners on a plane to the United States, declaring them traitors.
“The seriousness of these violations, in conjunction with the other crimes documented to date, perpetrated by reason of the political identity of the group targeted, leads the Group of Experts to conclude that these constitute prima facie the crime against humanity of persecution on political grounds,” the group said.
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