Nicaragua

Country Overview & Political Climate

Nicaragua is governed by President Daniel Ortega Saavedra and his wife, Vice President and Co-President-designate Rosario Murillo, who together exercise total control over the country’s executive, legislative, judicial, and electoral institutions through their Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party. The country’s human rights situation worsened significantly in 2024. The government intensified attacks on civil liberties, expanded repression against religious institutions, and accelerated the use of forced exile and citizenship revocation against critics and political opponents.

All meaningful elections since 2007 have been condemned as fraudulent by independent observers and international organizations. The 2021 elections — the most recent national elections — were widely characterized as lacking democratic legitimacy, featuring the arbitrary imprisonment of scores of opposition figures, the barring of all credible opposition parties, and the blocking of legitimate international observers. Following the elections, Ortega’s party used its supermajority in the National Assembly to eliminate restrictions on executive re-election and expand presidential powers. In January 2025, Ortega submitted a constitutional reform extending presidential terms to six years and formally establishing a co-presidency with Murillo. The reform also provides legal cover for stripping so-called “traitors” of their Nicaraguan nationality and censoring the press.

The U.S. Department of State Travel Advisory rates Nicaragua at Level 2: Reconsider Travel due to arbitrary enforcement of laws, the risk of wrongful detention, and limited healthcare availability, with an additional caution regarding crime. The U.S. Department of State has included a Risk of Wrongful Detention indicator on the Travel Advisory, reflecting the Ortega government’s documented pattern of arbitrarily detaining and expelling foreign nationals, including U.S. citizens.

Human Rights Conditions

Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, and Enforced Disappearance

Arbitrary arrests and prolonged detention without charges are defining features of the Ortega government’s repression. Detention decisions are frequently made directly by the president and vice president or a small group of intelligence officers under their command, with FSLN neighborhood committees providing surveillance and targeting support. Judges regularly deny or ignore constitutional protections for political detainees, including habeas corpus. Police and parapolice routinely hold individuals deemed opposition members beyond the legally permitted 48-hour window without seeking the required judicial extension. The NNP and prison authorities held multiple prisoners for three to five months before arraignment.

Human rights organizations documented multiple cases of enforced disappearance in which political opponents were detained without informing family members or legal counsel, without disclosing their location, without presenting them in a public court, and while denying access to all legal remedies including habeas corpus. In at least nine cases, security forces held political prisoners incommunicado for up to three months. On September 5, 2024, the government released 135 political prisoners who had been held for prolonged periods and expelled them from the country — stripping them of Nicaraguan nationality and confiscating their assets in violation of international law. A further 46 political opponents remained imprisoned as of the time of HRW reporting.

Over 450 people have been deprived of Nicaraguan nationality since February 2023, with many left stateless. The National Assembly amended the Criminal Code in September 2024 to allow in-absentia prosecution of individuals abroad accused of crimes in Nicaragua — a mechanism designed to target critics in exile, including those the government has already expelled.

Torture and Inhumane Treatment in Detention

Although Nicaraguan law prohibits torture, government officials carried out acts resulting in severe physical and mental suffering in 2024 for the purposes of extracting information, punishment, and deterring civic participation. Conditions at La Modelo prison were particularly severe: more than 150 prisoners were intentionally underfed and given spoiled food, subjected to extended darkness or artificial light, deprived of sunlight or kept outdoors in extreme heat, prohibited from speaking, denied access to reading material and religious objects, and held in solitary confinement for extended periods. Prison guards beat prisoners in August 2024 for celebrating news of protests in Venezuela. The UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua concluded that treatment of prisoners released in 2023 reached the legal threshold of torture.

Women prisoners were regularly subjected to strip searches, degrading treatment, and sexual violence by parapolice, prison officials, and police. One human rights organization reported that in 2023, one in four women prisoners had been raped while in custody. Family members of prisoners were subjected to degrading treatment during prison visits — including strip searches and body cavity searches — and were threatened with loss of visiting privileges if they reported abuses.

Parapolice Forces and State-Sponsored Violence

Nicaragua maintains a system of non-uniformed, armed, and masked parapolice units — formalized into a voluntary police force by Ortega in January 2025 — which operate in coordination with the Nicaraguan National Police (NNP) under direct government control and are thought to have more registered members than the formal NNP. These forces carry out harassment, intimidation, surveillance, and violence against perceived enemies of the regime, including former political prisoners and their families, farmworker activists, prodemocracy opposition groups, human rights defenders, private-sector leaders, clergy, and dissident FSLN members. Authorities have never investigated or prosecuted parapolice for these actions.

Religious Persecution

The government has intensified a sustained campaign against religious institutions, particularly the Catholic Church. Since October 2023, Nicaragua has forced over 200 religious figures into exile, deported them, or barred their return. In 2024, the government expelled seven Catholic priests after arbitrarily detaining them at a seminary, and earlier expelled 19 Catholic clergy members — including Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who had been imprisoned without due process since August 2022 and sentenced to 26 years in prison — and sent them to the Vatican. In total, 46 priests and bishops have been detained and subsequently expelled since 2018. The government also canceled the operating license of Radio Maria, a nationwide Catholic radio station. Since 2023, repression has expanded to include Protestant and evangelical groups; in August 2024, 11 evangelical pastors imprisoned since December 2023 were released and expelled.

Freedom of Expression and Press

The law provides for freedom of the press, but the government systematically violates this right. Journalists face death threats, violence, cyberattacks, surveillance, exile, passport confiscation, and criminal prosecution. Between January and June 2024, 10 journalists were forced into exile, bringing the total number of media workers who fled Nicaragua since 2018 to 276. Independent news is no longer produced in more than half the country. The government has closed at least 58 media outlets since 2018 and has occupied the offices and seized the equipment of major outlets including La Prensa, Confidencial, and 100% Noticias. Eight of Nicaragua’s 10 basic television channels are under direct FSLN control or owned by individuals with close government ties.

A September 2024 cybercrime law bars anyone — including individuals outside the country — from disseminating information that could produce “anxiety” in the public, a provision designed to criminalize criticism of the regime from abroad. The government operates troll farms to conduct cyberattacks against opposition media and harass civil society members, human rights defenders, and journalists online.

Civil Society and NGO Suppression

The government has shut down over 5,600 NGOs since 2018, including more than 1,500 in a single day in August 2024 — representing approximately 80 percent of all NGOs that operated in Nicaragua as of 2018. In August 2024, the National Assembly passed a law requiring all NGOs to share financial information with the government and form “alliances” with state entities; organizations had only days to comply, and most were unable to, providing the government with justification for mass closures. A second law passed in early September 2024 allows the government to charge individuals and organizations in absentia and seize assets upon conviction.

Transnational Repression

The Ortega government engages in documented acts of transnational repression against Nicaraguan exiles and their families. Nicaraguan parapolice and FSLN sympathizers have crossed into Costa Rica to target exiles. Intelligence officials within the Nicaraguan embassy in Costa Rica have surveilled exile organizations. Family members of opposition members in exile have been surveilled, harassed, detained, and wrongfully convicted as leverage to compel exiles to return and face arrest. The government has denied exiles’ children access to public documents including birth certificates, using bureaucratic obstruction as coercion. Authorities have attempted to misuse Interpol Red Notices for politically motivated extradition, including against clergy. Migration authorities analyze incoming flight manifests to prevent perceived opponents from re-entering the country.

Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities face escalating armed settler violence and government-supported encroachment on communal lands in the Autonomous Regions. The UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua documented 67 violent incidents against Indigenous peoples in Miskitu and Mayangna territories from April 2018 to March 2024, including murder, injury, sexual violence, and kidnappings. The State Department documented a March 2024 colono attack on an Indigenous community in the Mayangna Sauni As territory in which non-Indigenous armed outsiders fired on unarmed civilians and burned houses; no official investigation was conducted. The government has also moved against Indigenous political representation, stripping the Indigenous party YATAMA of its legal status and imprisoning its leaders.

Women’s Rights

Nicaragua has prohibited abortion under all circumstances since 2006, including when the pregnant person’s life is at risk. Women who obtain abortions face up to two years in prison; medical professionals who perform them face up to six years. Women in detention face sexual violence, degrading treatment, and retaliation threats with near-total impunity.

Security & Crime

The U.S. Department of State assesses Managua as a High-threat location for crime. The Travel Advisory rates Nicaragua at Level 2: Reconsider Travel, with additional risk indicators for arbitrary law enforcement and wrongful detention. Official homicide statistics from the Nicaraguan government place the rate at 6 per 100,000 inhabitants, but these figures are difficult to verify given government opacity; anecdotal evidence suggests crime is increasing, particularly in Managua, where robberies rose in 2024 amid high living costs and unemployment. Homicide rates significantly above the national average are recorded in the Southern Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region, the Mining Triangle (Siuna, Rosita, and Bonanza), Jinotega, and the Northern Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region overall.

The most frequently reported crimes are theft, pick-pocketing, and armed robbery, often carried out by criminals on motorcycles using knives or firearms. Sexual assaults targeting U.S. citizens have been reported at beach locations and hotels. Street crime increases significantly after dark in Managua.

Armed individuals in civilian clothes — parapolice operating under government control — have perpetrated violence throughout the country since April 2018 and were formally institutionalized in January 2025. These forces have carried out politically motivated assaults and harassment with total impunity. Drug trafficking and associated criminal elements operate in Nicaragua, and Nicaraguan government officials have been implicated in organized crime.

Police response capacity is severely limited outside major urban areas, particularly in the autonomous regions on the Caribbean coast, where the U.S. Embassy’s ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens is also severely limited. Victims of crime often must go to a police station to file a report, as police frequently will not respond to crime scenes. Police coverage is extremely sparse outside urban centers.

The Ortega government has demonstrated willingness to arbitrarily deny entry to Nicaragua and to detain, sentence, and deport individuals — including U.S. citizens — within days, without adequate legal process or timely U.S. consular notification. Nicaraguan officials review airline passenger manifests and examine travelers’ social media accounts prior to departure; travelers whose online activity is deemed objectionable may be denied boarding. OSAC members have reported visa denials and monitoring by government authorities.

Asylum Eligibility Grounds

Political Opinion — Nicaraguans who have been persecuted or face a well-founded fear of persecution based on actual or imputed political opinion constitute one of the most clearly documented categories of asylum-eligible individuals. The UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua has found reasonable grounds to believe that Nicaraguan authorities have committed crimes against humanity, including murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, forced deportation, and persecution on political grounds. The scale and systematic nature of repression — over 450 individuals stripped of nationality since 2023, 17,000+ politically motivated arrests since 2018, mass NGO closures, and the formalization of parapolice — provides extensive evidentiary support for individual claims.

Religion-Based Persecution — Nicaraguans persecuted on account of their religious identity or practice — including Catholic priests and laypeople, evangelical pastors, and members of church-affiliated civil society organizations — have cognizable asylum claims based on religion as a protected ground. The government’s documented pattern of detaining, expelling, and stripping nationality from clergy and religious figures since 2018, and the revocation of broadcasting licenses for Catholic media, supports the systemic nature of this persecution.

Particular Social Group — Potentially cognizable PSGs include: members of opposition political parties and their family members; former political prisoners and their families; human rights defenders; journalists; prodemocracy activists; Indigenous community leaders and members in the Autonomous Regions; farmworker and independent union organizers; and individuals who have publicly expressed religious or political views contrary to the FSLN. The government’s documented practice of targeting family members of exiles and using them as leverage strengthens derivative claims by family members who remain in Nicaragua.

Transnational Repression — Individuals who have already left Nicaragua but continue to face government targeting — through Interpol Red Notice abuse, surveillance and harassment in countries of refuge, family member persecution, and denial of consular services including passport renewal — may face ongoing persecution even outside Nicaragua’s borders, which is relevant to asylum and withholding claims.

Indigenous Identity — Indigenous and Afro-descendant Nicaraguans facing land dispossession, settler violence, and state failure to investigate or prosecute attacks may have claims based on race, ethnicity, or particular social group membership, supported by the UN’s documentation of 67 violent incidents in Indigenous territories over a six-year period.

Gender-Based Persecution — Nicaraguan women who have survived sexual violence in detention, or who face persecution connected to their gender — including under Nicaragua’s total abortion ban — may have claims based on membership in a particular social group. The documented pattern of sexual violence against women in custody with complete official impunity supports a showing of government unwillingness to protect.

Sources: Human Rights Watch World Report 2025 – Nicaragua; OSAC Nicaragua Country Security Report (March 2025); U.S. Department of State Nicaragua 2024 Human Rights Report.