OAS announces it will apply the Inter-American Democratic Charter to Nicaragua after learning that crimes against humanity have been committed in that country
OAS announces it will apply the Inter-American Democratic Charter to Nicaragua after learning that crimes against humanity have been committed in that country
Washington DC, December 28, 2018 – The Organization of American States (OAS) will begin the process of applying the Inter-American Democratic Charter to Nicaragua, declared Secretary-General Luis Almagro yesterday, after the Vice President of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR), Esmeralda Arosamena de Troitiño, presented a report produced by independent experts from various disciplines that reveals that actions committed by the State of Nicaragua against the peacefully-demonstrating population could be considered crimes against humanity.
Almagro explained that the application will begin with the convening of the Permanent Council, pursuant to Article 20 of the Charter, which establishes that when an alteration of the constitutional order occurs in any Member State that seriously impacts its democratic order, a collective assessment of the situation can be performed and related decisions adopted.
“We are required to begin the application of the Inter-American Democratic Charter to Nicaragua. The solution is still political and diplomatic, and we have the Inter-American regulatory instruments to address them,” Almagro said during an extraordinary session of the Permanent Council held in Washington, DC.
The Secretary-General of the OAS emphasized that at the beginning of the application of the Charter there is also an opportunity for the government of Nicaragua to reconsider its actions. Eight months after the beginning of the human rights and socio-political crisis in Nicaragua, at least 325 people have lost their lives as a result of the repression of demonstrators and more than 2,000 have been injured, according to the IACHR, while another 50,000 have had to flee the country and around 565 have been imprisoned.
During the last month, the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo launched a new escalation of repression against organizations defending human rights and media outlets by arbitrarily closing them and criminalizing journalists. Even the IACHR missions working in Nicaragua were expelled last week, accused of being “interventionist” and “biased.”
Secretary General @Almagro_OEA2015 at Special Meeting of Permanent Council: The logic of dictatorship is installed in #Nicaragua and #OAS must act to protect and defend. We are forced to begin the process of application of Article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter pic.twitter.com/OFMeXt7YNS
Chile: human rights don't have borders. Nicaragua's crisis needs to be resolved within the Inter-American system, including the use of the Democratic Charter pic.twitter.com/r17165d8pL
Under the current context of repression in Nicaragua, diplomatic representatives of several countries on the continent urged the Nicaraguan government to stop the repression and allow the return of the IACHR missions to the country; adhere to the recommendations of human rights experts; resume the national dialogue in a committed way; and reform the electoral system in order to hold early elections.
The United States of America, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile also requested the application of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, whose ultimate consequence could be the suspension of Nicaragua’s right to participate in the OAS.
Paula Bertol, Argentina’s ambassador to the OAS, stressed that “the lack of democracy and freedom in Nicaragua” has been exposed in the experts’ reports, and that is the reason why “many of our States are thinking about applying the Democratic Charter.” “Many of our States are also considering an extraordinary consultation meeting because we are worried about what is happening in Nicaragua, because we don’t want more people to die as a result of the abuse of State power,” she added.
The ambassador of Chile to the OAS, Jaime Francisco Alliende, also called for “a solution to the political crisis in Nicaragua to be developed according to the principles and values of Inter-American instruments, including the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” maintaining that when faced with a rupture of the rule of law, “all OAS Member States must raise their voices to call upon that regime to accept a peaceful and democratic solution to this serious crisis.”
The Vice President of the IACHR also supported the activation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter against the Nicaraguan government: “The IACHR calls on the OAS Member States to reject violations of human rights and acts of repression against the Nicaraguan population, and to consider compliance with the conditions that make the Inter-American Democratic Charter applicable to the country,” Arosemena de Troitiño said.
Future actions
In his speech, the Secretary-General also explained that future actions the OAS will take include asking the IACHR to denounce the crimes documented in its report before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and to ask the Permanent Council to request a meeting with the Security Council of the United Nations (UN) to present them the report on crimes against humanity.
The latter action would also permit the UN Security Council to remit the investigation of these crimes to the International Criminal Court, an organ of justice of which Nicaragua is not currently a party.
“If crimes against humanity continue to be committed, we will ask the States Parties of the OAS, as well as all democratic States, that under the concept of ‘universal justice,’ the officials appointed as instructors and executors in the experts’ report be detained and tried in their respective territories for these crimes, thus activating universal justice,” Almagro warned.
The ambassador of Nicaragua to the OAS, Luis Alvarado, ignored the report presented in the OAS and accused several countries of being “interventionist” and “biased” for requesting justice and democracy for Nicaragua. He also affirmed that Almagro did not deserve to be the Secretary-General of the OAS, an organization that he tried to disqualify by using the words of the late Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, describing it as a “Ministry of the Colonies.” The representative of Venezuela was the only one to openly endorse Alvarado’s speech.
The report of the GIEI
In its final report drafted after six months of work in the Central American country, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) determined that “the State of Nicaragua has engaged in conduct which, in accordance with international law, must be considered crimes against humanity,” according to what was made known by the IACHR experts last week.
The report, presented in Washington, DC two days after the group was expelled from Nicaragua by the authorities, indicates that the crimes committed with the consent of the highest levels of the Nicaraguan government, were assassinations, incarceration, persecution, rape, torture, and forced disappearance.
The foregoing was affirmed following an arduous process of collecting information through direct interviews with relatives of victims and surviving victims, visits to and observations conducted in locations where the violent incidents occurred, meetings with journalists, examination of documents such as videos, photographs, and material from [traditional] media and social media. The State refused to provide them with information, despite the fact that the authorities had accepted that the GIEI’s primary mission was to assist the Office of the Public Prosecutor of Nicaragua to clarify the violent incidents that occurred at the beginning of the crisis.
The experts found that between April 18 and May 30, at least 109 people were assassinated and another 1,400 were wounded as a result of a “generalized and systematic attack against the civilian population” that was demonstrating against the government.
“The clearest and most serious pattern of behavior consisted of the use of firearms, including weapons of war, directly against people who participated in protest actions,” the report states, pointing to the National Police as the force in command of this conduct, which was accompanied in its actions by parastatal armed groups with the support of local political authorities.
For this same reason, GIEI recommends investigating President Ortega as being responsible for these events, in his capacity as supreme commander of the National Police.
Another human rights violation described in the GIEI report is the State of Nicaragua’s violation of its duty to ensure due diligence in the investigation of the violent deaths that occurred between April 18 and May 30, 2018.
“Out of 109 cases of violent deaths registered by GIEI, only nine have been prosecuted, which means that 100 still remain shrouded in impunity,” said Claudia Paz y Paz during the presentation of the report.
Even so, in the nine cases that have been prosecuted, six relate to victims with some relationship to the State of Nicaragua or government party. “In no case have trials begun against State security forces, despite the various evidence that indicates their possible responsibility,” the Guatemalan expert lamented.
Main photo: Juan Manuel Herrera/OAS.
Why talk about Afro – LGBTI? Leaders meet to reflect on the challenges of this intersection
Cali, Colombia – December 21, 2018. In partnership with organizations from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, and the Dominican Republic, the International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race and Equality) is carrying out a project to strengthen the rights of Afro-descendent LGBTI people.
The workshop benefited from the participation of representatives from different countries of the region, including activists working with the Instituto Trans-formar (Trans-Form Institute) and the Red Nacional de Negros y Negras LGBT de Brasil (National Network of Black and Black LGBT of Brazil), the Conferencia Nacional de Organizaciones Afrocolombianas (National Conference of Afro-Colombian Organizations), the Fundación Afro-colombiana Arco iris de Tumaco (Afro-Colombian Rainbow Foundation of Tumaco) and Fundación Somos Identidad (We Are identity Foundation) of Colombia, the Red Peruana de Jóvenes Afrodescendientes Ashanti (Peruvian Network of Afro-Descendant Youth Ashanti), and, finally, the Transsa Siempre Amigas (Transsa Always Friends organization) from the Dominican Republic.
During the first part of the workshop, the members of the organizations had the opportunity to meet and discuss the need to consider the effects of intersectionality when analyzing the violations of human rights of the LGBTI population in Latin America and the Caribbean.
During the three working days, the participants of the workshop created an outline for a regional report on violence against the Afro-LBGTI population in Latin America and discussed the need for such a report, the scope it should have, and the most urgent subjects that should be reflected in the document. The content of the report as well as the inherent complexities of racial definitions and/or categorizations were part of the topics addressed in the workshop, which sought to enrich the discussions around the intersections of race and sexual diversity framed in a human rights analysis.
The second part of the workshop consisted of a conversation about the knowledge and experiences of LGBTI organizations that are part of the so-called Global South. Participants were able to share their experiences working with representatives of Colombian social organizations such as the Trans Community Network, a community process in the city of Bogotá. Katalina Ángel Ortíz, a member of that network, attended the workshop. Ms. Ortíz is a trans activist who works for the recognition and defense of the rights of LGBTI persons deprived of liberty as part of a community project with transgender women who perform sex work in one of the tolerance zones of the Colombian capital.
Finally, on December 20, 2018, the workshop attendees had the opportunity to hold a public event in the city of Cali to discuss “Why talk about Afro-LGBTI?” This discussion allowed for reflection and the exchange of experiences among activists in the region and activists in the city. This meeting was a turning point for the participants, as the discussion opened with valuable questions about the need for greater participation of Afro-trans persons and questions about the role of “white-mestizo” persons in such type of discussions.
These questions, tensions, and discussions are part of the beginning of a process of approaching the intersection between racial diversity and sexual diversity. It was a first space for analysis and debate, which will continue to be replicated in upcoming events and strengthened with the participation of civil society.
Race and Equality together with the organizations part of this project will continue to work to strengthen the Afro-LGBTI civil society with impact strategies in the Inter-American sphere. Within the framework of this project, the second working meeting on the use of the Inter-American System, including how to request precautionary measures to protect the population, will be held in February 2019.
Missions of the IACHR in Nicaragua expelled by the government
Washington D.C., December 20, 2018. Two missions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Nicaragua tasked with monitoring human rights violations and helping the authorities to clarify the violent events that transpired in April and May 2018 during the beginning of massive demonstrations left Nicaragua yesterday after the government suspended their visit and forced them to leave the country.
The expulsion of the Special Monitoring Mechanism for Nicaragua (MESENI, for its initials in Spanish), which arrived in the country on June 24, 2018, and the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI, for its initials in Spanish), which began its work in Nicaragua on July 2, 2018 – both in response to recommendations presented by the IACHR in the report “Serious Violations of Human Rights in the Context of the Social Protests in Nicaragua” – occurred a day before GIEI presented a report on their six months of work, and eight months after the beginning of the human rights crisis caused by the brutal governmental repression of citizen protests that has left at least 325 people dead, more than 2,000 injured, and around 565 political prisoners.
The government’s resolution also prevents Special Rapporteurs and officials of the IACHR from conducting a series of visits that were already scheduled for the first quarter of 2019.
“The most affected [by the expulsion] are the victims and their relatives, because the main value of our work is to be able to bring the victims closer to the truth and justice. That is our deepest regret,” MESENI Coordinator Ana María Tello declared moments after learning of the authorities’ decision.
#Nicaragua: UN Human Rights Chief @mbachelet is extremely alarmed by the Government's announcement that it has told two key #HumanRights institutions set up by @IACHumanRights to leave the country.
A MESENI report published Wednesday morning warned of “the intensification of a fourth stage of State repression” characterized, among other things, by the staggering of repressive measures and actions aimed at weakening the role played by human rights defenders and civil society organizations and the arbitrary expulsion or threat of expulsion of naturalized persons or permanent residents due to their participation in protests.
Months before, on August 31st, the government of Nicaragua expelled a mission of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) shortly after it presented a report on the serious human rights violations committed by State forces within the context of the protests.
The reasons
Members of MESENI and the four GIEI experts – Sofia Macher, Claudia Paz y Paz, Amérigo Incalcaterra, and Pablo Parenti – attended a meeting on Wednesday with Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, during which he informed them of the unilateral governmental decision.
The letter Moncada read to the IACHR officials, later published by pro-government media, stated that the missions had not met their objectives and that “the IACHR, MESENI, GIEI, and OHCHR have become a platform for disseminating false information to promote international sanctions” against Nicaragua. In addition, it notes that the members of the GIEI did not respond to a counterproposal from the government on its Protocol of Action and that, therefore, they carried out “a series of actions in violation of the terms of the agreement” and national laws.
Incalcaterra later explained that the non-compliance with the Protocol of Action alleged by Moncada is “false” because all State communications were answered by the experts. “[The authorities] have not demanded that GIEI behave differently or that the our work be done in a specific way,” he alleged, instead denouncing that they never were given access to judicial files, official information that would allow them to fully comply with their mandate, or judicial hearings, even though the latter are public according to Nicaraguan law.
“The reasons they have given us do not satisfy us in any way. We think those are arguments that have been developed, in the specific case of GIEI, so as to prevent us from presenting the report on our six months of work that was scheduled for tomorrow,” the expert added, also declining to provide details of the report, in light of the fact that the authorities had “suggested” he not do so in Nicaragua.
MESENI’s Tello also explained to local journalists that her mission sent more than 70 diplomatic notes to the government to request information or meetings with authorities, and that none of them had been answered. “There was never pressure from the government because we did not have a dialogue with them,” she said.
They will continue monitoring
The work of the IACHR that began in April 2018 launched with a working visit May 17-21, after which the report “Serious Human Right Violations in the Context of Social Protests in Nicaragua” was published. Since then, MESENI has drafted dozens of weekly reports on its monitoring work; the IACHR has processed precautionary measures for more than 100 people; and various Special Rapporteurs of that regional human rights body have visited the country to evaluate the current situation.
In addition, the Executive Secretary of the IACHR, Paulo Abraõ, has discussed the situation of Nicaragua in diverse spaces, such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and United Nations Human Rights Council. The IACHR also included four public hearings on Nicaragua in its 170th Period of Sessions, the last of which was held on December 6, 2018.
Ana María Tello stressed that neither the IACHR nor MESENI will stop monitoring the human rights situation in Nicaragua, although now they will have to do so from Washington, DC. Furthermore, experts of the GIEI announced that they would release their report from Washington, DC.
“The IACHR reiterates that the situation in Nicaragua will continue to be a priority, reaffirms its commitment to the victims of human rights violations, and will continue to monitor compliance by the Nicaraguan State with the international human rights obligations it has voluntarily assumed,” the Commission declared in a recent statement.
The International Institute on Race, Equality, and Human Rights (Race & Equality) condemns and rejects the decision of the State of Nicaragua to expel the Special Monitoring Mechanism for Nicaragua and the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
This arbitrary decision of the State of Nicaragua not only violates the agreements established with IACHR representatives, but also deepens the defenselessness of Nicaraguans at a time in which violence, criminalization, and harassment are intensifying against activists, human rights defenders, the media, and the general populace who dissent from the dictatorial regime.
We observe with concern a clear desire of the government to impose a state of terror in the country that violates the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international and regional human rights instruments.
We urgently call on the entire international community to continue to monitor the crisis in Nicaragua and press for the protection and guarantee of the Nicaraguan people’s human rights.
As an organization that promotes and defends human rights in the Americas, we reiterate our willingness and commitment to denounce and fight against all acts that undermine the chance to build democracy, justice, and freedom in Nicaragua.
STATEMENT: Aggressions against human rights organizations in Nicaragua continue
Washington, D.C. December 14, 2018. The International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race & Equality) strongly condemns the violent and illegal forceful entries of the Nicaraguan police into the offices of the Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos [Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights] (CENIDH), Instituto de Liderazgo de Las Segovias [Las Segovias Leadership Institute] (ILLS), Centro de Información y Servicios de Asesoría en Salud [Center for Health Information and Advisory Services] (CISAS), Fundación para la Promoción y el Desarrollo Municipal Popol Na [Popol Na Foundation for Municipal Promotion and Development], Fundación del Río [River Foundation], Instituto para el Desarrollo y la Democracia [Institute for Development and Democracy] (IPADE), and the Instituto de Estudios Estratégicos y Políticas Públicas [Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policy] (IEEPP). These forceful entries occurred beginning early Friday morning. All of the organizations had their legal status arbitrarily invalidated by the Nicaraguan Assembly. Race and Equality condemns these events as well the violent assault and looting of the newsrooms of the digital publication Confidencial, where the TV studios of the programs Esta Noche and Esta Semana are also located.
Representatives from the organizations reported that in order to break into their offices, the police agents abused their authority and physically assaulted the security guards in each location. They also broke down the doors, destroyed the furniture, and illegally seized documents, computers, and even vehicles.
Given this unprecedented attack in recent Nicaraguan history, we express our opposition to the arbitrary actions of the Nicaraguan authorities, as well as the impunity they enjoy when violating the fundamental freedoms of association and peaceful assembly of human rights defenders, the media and dissident activists. The actions of the authorities serve the purposes of the Ortega Murillo dictatorship and demonstrate an abrupt restriction of spaces for democratic participation and political rights of the groups that demand justice and peace in Nicaragua.
The human rights defenders involved are persistently attacked, criminalized, and persecuted. Additionally, the illegal takeovers carried out by the police not only violate the right to property and privacy of the defenders, but they are a forceful expression of the totalitarianism and politics of fear that the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have installed in the Central American country.
We demand that the Ortega government restore the legal status of the aforementioned organizations as well as return their stolen property.
These attacks are evidence of the state of repression and human rights crisis that the people of Nicaragua are facing. For this reason, we urge the international community to address these acts that violate the well-being of every human being and make it impossible to build democratic societies that seek to achieve welfare, justice and peace.
PERSECUTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS IN NICARAGUA: LEGAL STATUS OF CENIDH, HAGAMOS DEMOCRACIA, IEEPP, CISAS, AND FIVE OTHER NGOs INVALIDATED
Washington, DC, December 12, 2018 – During the last two weeks, the Nicaraguan government escalated the persecution and criminalization of human rights defenders in the country by utilizing the parliamentary majority of the FSLN, the party of the government, to invalidate the legal status of four human rights organizations with a long history of human rights defense and democratic institutions in the country, with the last two being Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos [Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights] (CENIDH) and Asociación Hagamos Democracia [Let’s Do Democracy Association].
This is “a decision to eliminate anyone who opposes, who criticizes the viciousness of the repression that is being driven” by the authorities, declared Vilma Núñez, President of CENIDH, after learning of the decision of the National Assembly (NA), although she assured that the “commitment to continue accompanying the Nicaraguan people in whatever form is not dissolved by an illegal and arbitrary resolution of organs that have no autonomy, that have no independence.”
On November 29, the NA invalidated the legal status of the Centro de Información y Servicios de Asesoría en Salud [Center for Health Information and Advisory Services] (CISAS) after immigration authorities stripped its Director, human rights defender and feminist Ana Quirós Víquez, of her Nicaraguan citizenship and deported her to Costa Rica. Later, December 11 brought the invalidation of the legal status of the Instituto de Estudios Estratégicos y Políticas Públicas [Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policy] (IEEPP), a think-tank led by academic and activist Félix Maradiaga, who had to go into self-imposed exile in the United States due to the criminalization to which he was subjected.
The four organizations – which have had an even more decisive role during the last eight months of sociopolitical and human rights crises – are accused without any grounds of having committed illegal acts, violated the public order, and carried out activities that are not appropriate to the goals for which they were established. However, the authorities committed arbitrary acts such as [holding] secret, expedited trials and did not permit said organizations’ legal representatives to argue anything in their own defense.
CENIDH was founded in 1990 as a center for defending and promoting human rights in Nicaragua; two years later, it obtained its legal status. Today, during the morning of December 12, at the request of the Director of the Department of Registration and Control of Associations in the Ministry of Government, Gustavo Sirias, the National Assembly received as an urgent proceeding the proposal to invalidate the legal status of this organization.
According to Sirias’ statement of motives, CENIDH was leaderless because [the term of] its Board of Directors had expired; it had not reported its financial statements for 2017; and additionally, had “utilized the organizational schema to raise, receive, channel, and facilitate funds to alter the public order and carry out actions to destabilize the country.”
Although the foregoing arguments were endorsed by FSLN Members of Parliament, the opposing Members of Parliament in the parliamentary plenary denied those accusations and insisted that this was one more arbitrary act committed by the Nicaraguan government against human rights defenders.
María Fernanda Flores, a Member of Parliament from the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC), maintained that the Nicaraguan Assembly was “leaving defenseless an entire population who through CENIDH denounces on a daily basis the abuses and violations of their rights,” while Member of Parliament Brooklyn Rivera of the indigenous Yatama Party said that the invalidation of CENIDH’s legal status in fact served to deepen the human rights crisis that Nicaragua had been experiencing since April. “We indigenous peoples have been witness to the difficult and thoroughly dedicated work performed by Dr. Núñez and her team. She has truly defended all Nicaraguans – Sandinistas, liberals, conservatives, campesinos, women, indigenous people, everyone,” Rivera declared.
Finally, the invalidation of CENIDH’s legal status was approved, with 70 votes in favor and 17 opposed. Núñez, as president of the organization, described the initiative as “malign” and expressed her anger to the media outlets that accompanied her to the institution’s headquarters after the decree was approved.
Vilma Núñez, president of CENIDH, submitted a report on Monday, December 10 on the six months of civic resistance to governmental repression in Nicaragua.
“There’s CENIDH for a while, there’s commitment on the part of each and every one of the human rights defenders, of its Board of Directors, of its founding members, but above all of the team that on a daily basis confronts violence, discrimination, [and] abuses committed by the government,” declared Núñez, backed by the CENIDH defenders.
With regard to the reasons presented today by the Ministry of Government (MIGOB) to the National Assembly, Núñez revealed that on March 23 the organization had submitted its financial statement to MIGOB for fiscal 2017, although they were not given proof of legality; and with regard to the Board of Directors, she said that it expired on April 25 and that the assembly to elect new authorities had to be suspended due to the critical situation transpiring in the country during those days, when the crisis had just begun.
“The Board of Directors was elected and on November 30, 2018 we sent them the certified minutes and [other] requirements. They did not want to sign, they did not want to acknowledge them as having been submitted, and they gave us a list of 15 requirements with which they said we had to comply in order for them to accept it,” explained Núñez, who indicated that CENIDH had not violated any of its By-laws and that all of its actions have transpired within the framework of the law.
“We are prepared to confront and reject any arbitrary action, any invasion of our physical institution they wish to undertake; by doing so they will not limit our commitment,” emphasized the President of CENIDH, who recently turned 80 years old.
Persecution of defenders
This week, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CENIDH presented a report entitled Grave Human Rights Violations Perpetrated by the State of Nicaragua describing the rights violated during six months of civic resistance to governmental repression.
The report declares that the State of Nicaragua violated the human right to defend rights, because a pattern exists of attacks aimed at human rights defenders, journalists, community leaders, lawyers, students, and activists who have been victims of actions such as intimidation, threats, assassinations, detentions, illegal raids, smear campaigns, defamation, [and] criminalization, among others, with the goal of “silencing their voices and preventing them from exercising their right to inform, protest, express themselves, and defend human rights.”
A number of days ago, CENIDH asked for permission to march in commemoration of Human Rights Day, complying with the unconstitutional police order regarding protests. Permission was not only denied, but the police alleged as one of its arguments that the organization was being investigated regarding the April incidents.
One day after the Nicaraguan Assembly invalidated the legal status of CENIDH and Hagamos Democracia [Let’s Do Democracy], it also invalidated the legal representation of five other organizations that defend human rights, nature, and freedom of the press: Instituto de Liderazgo de Las Segovias [Las Segovias Leadership Institute] (ILLS), whose director, Haydeé Castillo, has suffered repeated persecution, threats, and even immigration detention; the environmental [organization] Fundación del Río [River Foundation], which had been threatened for disseminating information and denouncing arbitrary actions regarding the fire in the Reserva Indio Maíz [Corn Indian Reserve]; Instituto para el Desarrollo y la Democracia [Institute for Development and Democracy] (IPADE), one of the independent national organizations that is best-trained to observe elections; Fundación para la Promoción y el Desarrollo Municipal Popol Na [Popol Na Foundation for Municipal Promotion and Development], a leader in the ‘anti-canal’ movement, whose director, Mónica López Baltodano, was forced to go into self-imposed exile in Costa Rica due to the constant threats she faced in the country; and the Centro de Investigación de la Comunicación [Communication Investigation Center] (CINCO).
DECLARATION
The International Institute of Race, Equality, and Human Rights (Race & Equality) strongly condemns and rejects the arbitrary decision of the State of Nicaragua issued today in the plenary of the National Assembly to invalidate the legal status of organizations that promote and defend human rights and democracy.
The legislative decree to invalidate the legal status of ILLS, Fundación del Río, IPADE, Fundación Popol Na, [and] CINCO, as well as the one that preceded it targeting CENIDH, Hagamos Democracia, IEEPP, and CISAS, demonstrate the state of repression and grave violation of freedom of expression, participation, association, and peaceful assembly of which the Nicaraguan people, human rights defenders, and independent media are victims today as dissidents of the dictatorial plans being imposed by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo on the Nicaraguan people.
We reject the statements made by the FSLN Members of Parliament in the National Assembly, who irresponsibly accuse organizations of human rights defenders that have tirelessly demanded justice, democracy and truth for the regime’s victims – as the Nicaraguan people and international community know – as being “terrorists” and “coup participants.”
We observe with concern the extremely grave consequences of the absence of rule of law in Nicaragua due to the actions of the current government, which far from guaranteeing, safeguarding, and protecting the people’s human rights, have obstinately persisted in restricting civil society’s legitimate possibility to freely participate in social construction, which opens new, repugnant, and deliberate gaps of inequality, exclusion, and discrimination.
Likewise, we declare that this determination of the Ortega-Murillo regime will never ensure the ‘invisibilization’ of the terror, vulnerability, and violence being visited upon the country for eight months now, aimed at perpetuating the impunity in which grave violations of Nicaraguans’ fundamental rights continue to be committed in the form of assassinations, persecution, and intimidation to which they have been submitted due to their denunciations.
We at Race & Equality are convinced that without a new political and social agreement there will be no peaceful resolution to the crisis; therefore, we demand that the State of Nicaragua respect and guarantee Nicaraguans’ rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Likewise, we urge [governmental] respect for the guarantees of due process and the right to a defense that today are brazenly violated by the National Assembly through its sanctioning of said organizations based on unilateral reports that arbitrarily accuse those institutions of carrying out activities that differ from their objectives and missions.
All of these incidents encourage us to raise an international alarm regarding the situation in Nicaragua. We invite the international community, human rights protection organs, and the various manifestations of civil society to redouble their efforts so as to ensure the prompt return of democracy, justice, and peace to Nicaragua.
The Outcome of the International Decade for People of African Descent in the Americas Depends on All of Us
On December 8, 2018 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights will hold a consultation on the regional mechanisms to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other related forms of intolerance. This is a good time to take stock of the situation facing people of African descent in the Americas. In 2018, seventeen years after the World Conference against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa, where does the region stand in terms of these issues? Given the lack of progress on the Durban agenda, the United Nation General Assembly introduced the International Decade for People of African Descent, 2015-2024. This effort builds on the recommendations adopted at the 2001 World Conference against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa which convened global actors to discuss preventative measures and implications of racism. During the WCAR, the UN General Assembly acknowledged that the legacy of colonialism, the slave trade, and slavery continues to impede Afro-descendants’ access to societal inclusion. The resulting Durban Declaration and Programme of Action provided a framework for advancing racial rights, with a focus on increasing visibility, accessing justice, and developing measures against poverty.
For the 200 million people of African descent in the Americas, this presents a critical opportunity for targeted change. The culturally-sensitive guidelines and suggestions set forth in the International Decade for People of African Descent offer real mechanisms for positive development, but there is a long way to go before this population feels the positive outcomes of the Programme of Action. Despite the regional trend of economic growth in the Americas, structural racial discrimination still prohibits substantive numbers of people of African descent from profiting from such growth. As the half-way point of the Decade approaches, domestic and international bodies should assess successful implementation strategies and address remaining challenges. The commitment of civil society, national, and international bodies to the Decade could set a positive precedent for targeted socio-economic change in the Americas.
Afro-descendants represent 25 percent of the population in Latin America, but are routinely excluded from the national narrative of their respective countries. During the 1980s and 1990s, black movements in countries like Brazil, Colombia, and Panama demanded their national governments include or restore ethno-racial data to the national census. The data, they argued, would substantiate their claims of the deep-rooted socio-economic disparities between ethnic groups, and hopefully oblige their national government to address the issues. Now, more countries have begun to include ethno-racial data in their census and officially recognize the multiethnic composition of their countries. In Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil, for example, several million Afro-descendants make up ten to 55 percent of the population and countries like Cuba, Mexico, and Ecuador have populations of more than one million Afro-descendants each. 98 percent of people of African descent in Latin America are concentrated in the aforementioned countries.
Interestingly, self-reporting, perceived racial markers, and the structure of questions asked may impact a person’s decision to identify as black or Afro-descendant. This undervalues the number of Afro-descendants in the Americas. Cultural particularities such as a history of race mixture, the tendency to self-identify based on skin color, or regional distinction have, in some cases, obstructed the promotion of collective Afro-descendant identities. Centuries of negation of black identities pushed in large part by the dominant societies, have led to pervasive colorism, which continues today. Lighter hued persons with more European features like a narrow nose and straighter hair are preferred over the darker hued persons with “pelo malo” or “bad hair” referring to traditionally recognized African hair. Notwithstanding, Black social movements are using innovation, folk traditions, and education to foster a sense of cultural pride and positively shape self-perception. As outlined by the recommendations of the UN, nations should actively strive to, “Promote greater knowledge and recognition of and respect for the culture, history and heritage of people of African descent.” The Decade can expand on these movements and disseminate the cultural traditions and rich diversity of Afro-descendants in the Americas. By doing so it can also break down colorism and other perceptions that deeply divide persons.
Three Case Studies: Colombia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic
While the Decade’s guidelines apply to all countries, the action-agenda should be done in consultation with African descendent and in some cases territorial authorities of each particular country. The historical and socio-cultural context of the country in question largely determines the specific struggles Afro-descendants confront in their pursuit for equality. In countries like Colombia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic human rights defenders and Afro-descendant civilians are forced to contend with multinational organizations, large-scale development projects, paramilitary and illegal armed groups, and even the state over equal and complete integration into society.
Colombia’s 54 year-long internal armed conflict, for example, illuminated the realities of Colombia’s racialized geographies. Violence consumed the Pacific and Caribbean coastal regions, which, in areas like the Chocó and Nariño, are home to an overwhelming majority of people of African descent. When President Juan Manuel Santos brokered the historic peace accords in 2016 with the nation’s largest guerilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the world believed in its potential to set a new standard for international negotiation and conflict resolution. Afro-Colombians joined forces with the indigenous to fight their way into peace negotiations and convinced the parties to commit to an Ethnic Chapter, which transversally guarantees their ethnic and collective land rights through the peace agenda. However, the government’s failure to implement key parts of the accord has left many communities vulnerable. Illegal armed groups took advantage of the FARC’s demobilization to establish dominance in ethnic minorities’ territories. This has increased insecurity and displacement in Afro-Colombian areas.
At the same time, illegal armed groups have upped their persecution of social leaders and human rights defenders. More than 330 social leaders have been assassinated since January 2016 and this disproportionately impacts indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. According to the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), in 2018 34 percent of social leaders killed were ethnic minorities (19 percent Afro descendent and 16 percent indigenous). Out of a total of 38 murdered in 2018 compiled by CODHES, 21 were Afro-Colombian and 17 indigenous. 50 percent of the leaders killed were traditional authorities, territorial representatives and leaders of ethnic organizations, 36 percent were community leaders or trade unionists, 8percent were land rights claimants and the remaining were family members of female leaders. The regions where the majority of the homicides took place from worst to least are: Cauca (26 percent), Valle del Cauca (18 percent), Antioquia (16 percent), Chocó (11 percent), Córdoba (11 percent) and Nariño (8 percent). In addition to the racialization of security concerns that make Afro-Colombians more vulnerable to harm, they continue to face rampant and open racial discrimination. The recent debate in Colombia over a TV character named Soldado Micolta or Private Micolta, whereby a mestizo dressed up in blackface and ridicules people of African descent is indicative of the fact that Colombian society has a long way to go in terms of tolerance, respect and acceptance of Afro-Colombians.
Brazil’s human rights defenders and black communities face a strikingly similar protection crisis, which is further exacerbated by state security forces. In 2017 the Brazilian Forum of Public Security found the homicide rate to be 30.8 per 100,000 individuals. To quell the violence, in 2008 the state of Rio de Janeiro implemented a violence reduction strategy in the favelas or “slums” known as the Police Pacification Units (Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora, UPPs). Military police were trained to enter and occupy a specific favela, taking control from gangs and ensuring peace for the community. Although it was initially acclaimed for its apparent success, the UPP initiative was later found to be another conduit for violence. In what many have called a state-sponsored black genocide, police raids in the favelas led to stop-and-frisk policies and extrajudicial killings that damaged communities’ trust in the police and amplified cycles of violence for citizens and the police force.
According to Human Rights Watch, in 2015 one-fifth of Rio homicides were committed by police, and three-fourths of the victims were black men. The U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and the UN have condemned this “arbitrary deprivation of life” which disproportionately affects Afro-Brazilians under 25. The issue was catapulted to the international stage when Rio de Janeiro Councilwoman Marielle Franco was murdered in early 2018. Marielle, a 38-year-old, black, queer, single mother from the favela of Maré and the only black woman to serve on the 51-member city council used her platform to oppose President Temer’s mandated “federal intervention” against drug cartels in the favelas. The investigation into her assassination remains stalled. Amnesty International Brazil contends that the lack of progress regarding the investigation shows “the Brazilian state’s lack of commitment to human rights defenders.” International groups and black organizations insist that they will continue their fight in spite of the attempt to silence people of African descent.
On the island of Hispaniola, tensions between the Dominican Republic and Haiti gave way to an unprecedented forced migration crisis in 2013. The Dominican Court issued a new ruling called La Sentencia 168-13, which reserved citizenship only for people born in the Dominican Republic to Dominican citizens or legal residents and retroactively applied the law to all persons born on Dominican soil between 1929 and 2010. As such, families who had birthright citizenship and lived in the Dominican Republic for generations were suddenly considered to be effectively “residing illegally in the Dominican territory.” The ruling rendered 200,000 people stateless. The vast majority of those effected were descendants of Haitian migrant workers born in the Dominican Republic. International actors like the Inter-American Commission swiftly denounced the ruling for discriminating based on ethno-racial qualifiers and Haitian President Michel Martelly labeled it a “civil genocide”. The ruling builds on past policies that explicitly targeted Afro-descendants. Under the Trujillo Era (1930 – 1961), official identification documents used the term indio for citizens too dark to be white, whereas negro or black was reserved for Haitians. Anti-black sentiment became public policy in 1937 in the Perejil or Parsley Massacre when Trujillo ordered the army to kill 20,000 Haitians living on the Dominican Republic’s northwestern frontier. The military targeted victims based on identifiers like skin color and the ability to correctly pronounce the Spanish word perejil; still many dark-skinned Dominicans were killed in the massacre. The 2013 ruling highlights the Dominican Republic’s history of furtive narratives and policies that marginalize people of African-descent.
Socioeconomic standards for people of African descent
Studies that analyze the socioeconomic status of Afro-descendants in the Americas have shed light on the extent of their inclusion and exclusion in society. Regionally, 82 percent of Afro-descendants benefit from living in urban settings with relatively high access to services like electricity, running water, and sanitation. However, these persons tend to be found to the poorest sub-sections of cities with deficient infrastructure, increased vulnerability to environmental dangers, and higher exposure to crime and violence. Due to the negative perception of Afro-descendant communities and slums as “disorderly,” Afro-descendants are more susceptible to institutionalized or “state-sponsored” violence. In September 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a press release to express their “deep concern” over this regional trend. Although Afro-descendants are disproportionately represented in cases of homicide victims, they do not have the same access to state security protection as non-Afro-descendants. The state’s failure to provide equal access to such a vital service is not limited to security. Inadequate access to state healthcare institutions contributes to health disparities amongst Afro-descendants. For example, regions in Latin America with a high concentration of Afro-descendants consistently have the lowest level of development and feature the following health disparities in comparison to their respective national averages: higher infant mortality rates amongst Afro-descendants in the Chocó, Colombia, higher suicide and homicide rates amongst Afro-descendants from Esmeraldas in Ecuador, higher rate of HIV/AIDS amongst the Garifuna community in Honduras, and a higher rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence amongst Dominico-Haitians and Haitians working in sugarcane fields. Targeted reforms that increase access to state resources are necessary to alleviate these issues.
Poverty is a pressing issue for people of African descent. In fact, race is one of the most consistent indicators of poverty in Latin America. Holding constant variables such as age, gender, education, type and sector of work, and professional experience, Afro-descendants were found to earn considerably less for the same type of jobs across the region. Additionally, factors like employers’ implicit and explicit racial biases can lead to wage gaps and hiring discrimination practices especially with the common requirement of pictures on resumes. These factors contribute to the increased likelihood that people of African descent will be born poor and remain poor for extended periods. Educational attainment is a proven deterrent to poverty, however ethno-racial inclusion in education is lacking. School settings tend to reproduce negative biases and create hostile environments for students of African descent, which lead to higher dropout rates. On average, 30 percent of Afro-descendants complete secondary education and five percent of Afro-descendants finish tertiary education compared to 46 percent and 14 percent respectively. Although educational attainment is not an indicator of intelligence, its importance cannot be understated. As the Decade progresses, national and international bodies should address obstacles to educational attainment and wealth attainment in order to improve the livelihoods of people of African descent.
Looking backwards to move forward
Racial discrimination in institutional practices is entrenched in the processes of colonialization and independence. Between 10 and 15 million enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. As Afro-descendants and Indigenous people outnumbered the Europeans, Europeans implemented self-interested policies that enabled them to maintain power in their racially-mixed colonies. In places like Mexico, the resulting Castas system outlined 16 different results of race-mixture that might occur, and demonstrated the apparent superiority of those with visibly European features. Names for people of African descent such as mulato “mule”, lobo “wolf”, or torno atras “turn away” denoted the negative perceptions of those with African features.
After the colonial period, the wars of independence gave way to processes of nation-building that replicated Eurocentric racial hierarchies. Theories of contemporary eugenics supported national calls for Blanqueamiento or “whitening” and mestizaje or “mixing” in order to “advance the race.” Countries with large European-descendant populations like Argentina and Chile embraced blanqueamiento, which purported that a whiter appearance, legal self-identification as white, and lighter-skinned children would facilitate social mobility, while proponents of mestizaje, belonged to countries with significant populations of Afro-descendants and/or Indigenous people like Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia.
Such ideologies justified policies designed to attract European migrants and discourage or ban less-desirable populations. The underlying logic for the social tools alleged that the path to becoming a developed, civilized nation state necessitated the dilution of undesirable ethno-racial physical characteristics. Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos, in support of mestizaje argued that, “the lower types of the species will be absorbed by the superior type…the Black could be redeemed, and step by step, by voluntary extinction the uglier stocks will give way to the more handsome.” The promotion of mestizaje had gendered implications. In Cuba the phrase, “una blanca para casarse, una negra para la cocina y una mulata para la cama” embodies societal perceptions of which identities are entitled to protected designation of femininity and virtue. The encouragement to racially mix through sexual union further justified European men’s sexual assault of women of African and Indigenous descent. With little to no legal protection, there were rarely consequences for the perpetrators or rape and sexual violence. National narratives of racial mixture often obscure these details and favoring an account of history that implies consensual race-mixture led to the morally-superior “racial democracy” visible today.
The pervasive implications of mestizaje and blanqueamiento conceal vibrant Afro-descendant communities and validate discriminatory hiring practices. For example, former Argentinian President Carlos Menem once stated, “In Argentina blacks do not exist, that is a Brazilian problem.” His flawed statement demonstrates the lack of national awareness at the federal level surrounding Afro-descendants and the problems they face. Racism in professional settings is another persistent problem for Afro-descendants that is explained away with mestizaje or the myth of a racial democracy. In Latin America, lucrative sectors like media or tourism often require that job applicants possess a “good appearance.” A Cuban tourist manager explained the phenomenon by saying, “There is no explicit policy stating that one has to be white to work in tourism, but it is regulated that people must have a pleasant aspect, and blacks do not have it.” Unfortunately, this rhetoric invariably harms people of African-descent, and without appropriate race-based initiatives, hiring discrimination will not be addressed.
Positive Developments
In spite of the negatives, the last few decades have seen some developments for people of African descent. While very slow to develop, countries like Colombia and Brazil have begun to accept the plural ethnicities and to attempt to protect them, at least via legal means on paper. A testament to the increased awareness of African-descendants in the Americas, Mexico included a question about Afro-Mexicans on the national survey in 2015 and found that 1.4 million individuals self-identified as Afro-Mexican. In South America, Peru brought awareness to the cultural history of Afro-Peruvians in 2009 when the Peruvian government apologized to Afro-Peruvian people for a history of “abuse, exclusion and discrimination perpetrated against them since the colonial era.” Brazil also aimed to address its history of racial discrimination in education when the federal universities implemented sweeping affirmative-action policies to increase Afro-descendants’ access to higher education. In Colombia, black social groups and international organizations worked together to successfully include of the Ethnic Chapter in the Colombian Peace Accords, which brought an end to the Colombian Civil Conflict. The Ethnic Chapter provided “principles, safeguards, and guarantees” for the rights of ethnic communities in the aftermath of the Conflict. International bodies have created targeted projects like the Pan American Health Organization’s Health Plan for Afro-descendant youth with concrete recommendations. In Central America, political representation took a positive turn when Costa Rica elected Epsy Campbell Barr as the first Vice President of African Descent in the Costa Rica and the first female Vice President of African Descent in the Americas.
In the United States, Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA-4) introduced bill H. Res. 713 in early 2018 to request Congress’s support of the International Decade for People of African Descent. The bill has five objectives:
Support the goals and ideals of the International Decade for People of African Descent.
Support the establishment of a global affairs strategy and assistance for people of African descent.
Support the expansion of current efforts by the UN, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Organization for American States, and other international organizations to address the human rights situation of people of African Descent
Call upon the United States in cooperation with civil society to develop and implement domestic and global strategies to execute the goals and ideals of the Decade. To combat racism, including by expanding the transformative work of the United States Department of State’s Race, Ethnicity, and Social Inclusion Unit in this regard.
Reaffirm the commitment of Congress to combat racism, discrimination, and intolerance in the United States and around the globe.
In the resolution, Johnson cites former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power’s statement that “the United States comes to the International Decade for People of African Descent with a full and robust commitment to ensuring the rights of persons of African descent, and to combating racism and discrimination against them.’’ Representative Johnson’s resolution encourages productive dialogue within U.S. Congressional institutions that recognize the socio-cultural and economic contributions of people of African Descent and generates critical dialogue designed to address structural racism. Institutionalizing such a bill would signal exceptional dedication on the part of the U.S. to support people of African Descent and combat racism. The resolution is an effort to expand upon efforts undertaken to combat racial discrimination in the Americas including the U.S. Colombia-Racial Action Plan (CAPREE) and U.S.-Brazil Racial Action Plan that seek to decrease racial discrimination and increase opportunities for ethnic minorities in the U.S., Brazil and Colombia.
Looking ahead
Positive initiatives like Representative Johnson’s resolution are vital to human rights, especially now. Frustration with “broken” political systems triggered the emergence of socially-conservative political regimes in countries like the top four South American economies: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Chile. In Colombia, President Iván Duque was sworn into office in August. Duque won popularity among Colombia’s political and economic elites by promising to tear apart the peace accord so vital to protection Afrodescendant and indigenous persons and providing truth and reparations to Colombia’s over 8 million registed victims. In office, his administration is minimally advancing obligations the government agreed to in the accord, and he’s taken a strong line in the nascent ELN peace dialogues which are currently at a standstill. Violence and combat operations involving the ELN guerillas is concentrated in three regions, one of which is majority Afrodescendant and indigenous. Still, Afro-descendant communities are pressing Duque to move forward on the FARC deal, implement the Ethnic Chapter and to agree to a ‘humanitarian accord’ with the ELN.
Like Duque, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera prefers to use “heavy-handed” tactics to address his concerns. When recent waves of Afro-descendant immigrants arrived in the largely mestizo or white country, Piñera suggested lax immigration laws were responsible for “importing problems like delinquency, drug trafficking and organized crime.” Newly-elected Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro represents a more extreme case. Lauded as “Brazil’s Trump” he has openly disparaged Afro-descendant communities, queer groups, and women. In a 2017 trip to a quilombo, an Afro-Brazilian community founded by the descendants of runaway Afro-Brazilians during the age of slavery, Bolsonaro ridiculed their weight using terminology for weighing cattle and said, “They do nothing. They are not even good for procreation!” The public officials’ incendiary rhetoric and hardline approaches could lead to dangerous public policies as people become increasingly comfortable seeing the “out-group” as other. These statements prompted five members of the U.S. Congress to write to National Security Advisor John Bolton on November 28, urging that governments in the Americas and U.S. and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “closely monitor the human rights climate in Brazil in the coming years to ensure that the President-elect’s rhetoric does not lead to further abuses of marginalized communities.”
When citizens who seek a sense of lawfulness and order associate other human beings with disorder, it is easier to create policies that seclude and dehumanize them. The Decade seeks to address this issue by creating a comprehensive understanding of Afro-descendants that maintains human dignity. The contemporary experience for people of African Descent in the Americas is rooted in complex histories of contention and resistance that will take more than a decade to address.
The International Decade for People of African Descent presents a viable opportunity to reflect on the past, address transgressions, and implement key policies for a positive future. The multifaceted set of issues Afro-descendants face range from social and economic exclusion to systemic assassinations and still, Afro-descendants in the Americas are considered to be the ethno-racial group with the most positive outlook. With the proper support, the strength and expertise of Afro-descendant communities paired with national bodies and international organizations could set new precedents for targeted reforms. Everyone deserves the right to full, equal societal inclusion, and when marginalized groups benefit so does everyone else. An Inter-American Development report found that integration of marginalized groups into the job market could expand the productivity of many Latin American governments by one-third. Societies should invest in the full integration of their citizens, and especially their most marginalized, in order to improve their productivity, improve their institutions, and improve the lives of all of their citizens. In 2024, the International Decade for People of African Descent will come to an end. When the Decade ends, what positive changes will remain? The answer to this question depends on all of us and the actions we will take to defend Afrodescendant rights in this region.
About The Author
Gimena Sánchez– Garzoli – Director for the Andes, and Crystal Yuille, Executive Assistant and Internship Coordinator, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).[/vc_column_text]
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Attacks against independent journalists escalate alarmingly in Nicaragua and international community reacts
(Picture: Oscar Navarrete, La Prensa).
Washington, D.C., December 6th, 2018. Attacks against journalists, editors, and media owners perpetrated by authorities and supporters of the government party FSLN have increased in the last two months in Nicaragua, according to testimonies of reporters and organizations.
The Violeta B. de Chamorro Foundation (FVBCH, for its initials in Spanish), counted a total of 77 violations of freedom of expression in Nicaragua between October 20th and December 3rd. Between April 18th, the day the current human rights crisis began, and December 3rd, there have been a total of 497 cases of assaults, harassments, arbitrary arrests, espionage and non-routine inspections.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF, for its initials in Spanish) denounced last week that police forces “are no longer content to obstruct the work of journalists,” but “they are now directly taking violent actions against journalists they consider too critical of the government.”
Nicaragua is going through a human rights crisis caused by the government-led repression of peaceful demonstrations across the country. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), this repression has left as of now at least 325 dead and more than 2,000 people injured. Additionally, hundreds of persons are political prisoners and more than 50,000 citizens have fled to Costa Rica.
Recent aggressions
The last attack on the media was reported on December 3rd, when police officers forcefully entered the headquarters of Radio Darío in the city of León. According to the staff members who were inside the building, a group of policeman forced them to stop the radio broadcasting and handcuffed them under threat of imprisonment.
“It was all a police operation, a huge outpouring of force and vehicles. They surrounded the block where we are located for three hours,” Aníbal Toruño, director of Radio Darío, told the journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro on the television program Esta Noche.
Toruño blamed the First Police Commissioner of Leon, Fidel Domínguez, for ordering the arbitrary procedure and stated that authorities are “trying to destroy the emotional and psychological stability of workers to disintegrate the staff of Radio Darío.”
Radio Darío has been besieged by the authorities and supporters of the FSLN since the beginning of the crisis. On April 20th, the radio installations were burned completely by two well-known cadres of the ruling party. After that, three of the radio collaborators, Leo Cárcamo, Henry Blanco and Audberto Gallo, as well as Toruño, were granted precautionary measures (No. 693-18) by the IACHR.
Toruño assured that the radio will continue transmitting its regular programming now from other facilities, “assuming [we have] the constitutional right to free expression.”
Also on December 3rd, in the morning, government media reported that supporters of the ruling party made a formal accusation before the Office of the Public Prosecutor against Miguel Mora, director and owner of Channel 100% Noticias for “inciting hatred and violence” through the news programming that his channel transmits. They also accused him, despite a lack of evidence, for the disappearance and alleged murder of Bismarck Martínez, a citizen who supposedly died during the month of June.
Mora, who has been harassed and detained six times by police agents, denied the accusations and assured that authorities are trying to use a “legal” device to imprison him and silence the reports of human rights violations committed by the government that are transmitted on his channel every day.
“This is being done to censor and silence the independent media of this country… this is part of the dirty smear campaign that has the sole purpose of censoring 100% Noticias and me as its director,” Mora denounced, according to La Prensa newspaper.
On several occasions during the last eight months, Channel 100% Noticias has been censored by the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Postal Services (Telcor, for its initials in Spanish). A week ago, Telcor ordered two cable companies to remove the channel from its programming grid in satellite signal.
A week before, on November 30th, Radio Mi Voz from León announced that it would temporarily close operations because of multiple police invasions of the radio station. Its director, Álvaro Montalván, who was arrested and beaten by policeman in the same context, said that the security of the radio’s staff made him make that decision.
Nowadays, the situation is so serious that RSF noted that several journalists have had to leave the country due to constant death threats and persecution, and warned about the possibility that more journalists should follow the same path.
Back in April, the journalist from Bluefields, Ángel Eduardo Gahona, was shot and killed while broadcasting on Facebook Live about an anti-government demonstration. Although Brandon Lovo, 18, and Glen Slate, 21, were found guilty of the crime, both their relatives and Gahona’s family point out that the real murderer remains unpunished.
The International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race and Equality) strongly condemns the violations of freedom of the press and freedom of expression that the government of Nicaragua has committed against independent media, media directors, and journalists who expose the complaints of Nicaraguans victims of State repression through their news programs and articles.
Intimidations, persecutions, unjustified temporary detentions, and invasion of media buildings without a judicial order expose the will of the Ortega Murillo regime to break and violate the legitimate liberties and rights that the country’s constitution grants to men and women of the press. We demand that the Nicaraguan authorities completely cease repression against independent press.
LGBTI defenders face great challenges in Latin America
Washington, D.C. December 5th, 2018. During the last decade, the recognition of human rights for the LGBTI community and their legal protections have been strengthened in Latin America. Nevertheless, the LGBTI population still faces serious patterns of discrimination and violence that have been fueled by hate speech expressed by religious groups or circumstantial political issues, according to experts working in the region who held a conversation last week in Washington DC.
During the panel “Defending LGBTIQ Rights in Latin America: Obstacles and Advancements in Law and Culture,” organized by the Inter-American Dialogue, the speakers also focused on problems that further limit access to LGBTI rights, such as racial discrimination and poverty.
Fanny Gómez, Senior Director of Policy & Advocacy at Synergía; Carlos Quesada, Executive Director and Founder of the International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race and Equality); Iván Chanis Barahona, President of Iguales Foundation in Panama; and Abraham Banegas Molina, Technical Officer of Cozumel Trans in Honduras, spoke on Tuesday with Michael Camilleri, Director of the Peter D. Bell Rule of Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue to share their opinions and experiences on the topic.
Continued violence and discrimination
The continued violence towards the LGBTI population was a central topic in the conversation held by regional experts, in which different perspectives were highlighted.
According to Gómez from Synergía, in the last 5 or 7 years, there has been progress in terms of protecting people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, ranging from an increase of official statements supporting the LGBTI community to the approval of gender identity laws or same-sex marriage. “But this has not meant that the violence has decreased,” she added.
Durante #LGBTIQCentroamerica - Carlos Quesada habla sobre los avances en derechos a las personas #LGBTI que han tenido un impacto diferenciado en materia racial y en el acceso socio económico a derechos. pic.twitter.com/88ZgV0cuZr
Carlos Quesada also emphasized that the advances in LGBTI human rights in the region impact the Afro-descendant population differently. Consequently, they are more vulnerable to violence.
“In the specific case of Brazil, every 30 hours a person dies because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, and 90% of those people are Afro-descendants,” the director of Race and Equality stated.
Regarding the trans community, Quesada said, violence towards their bodies has become “a disease in the region.”
“On one hand, there are countries like Colombia that have formally created institutions to defend and investigate hate crimes, but they don’t have sensitized staff that can do their job effectively,” Quesada said, noting that situations like these lead to continued violence and impunity.
Abraham Banegas from Honduras agreed that the trans men and women in his country are the “most affected” by violence directed at the LGBTI community.
Hate speech
Banegas also stressed that the “main adversary” to LGBTI rights in Honduras is religious fundamentalism.
“They attack our comrades in the name of God,” the activist said. He regretted that some religious congregations with thousands of followers promote hate messages to their parishioners, politicians, and decision makers.
For Fanny Gómez, the recent growth and strengthening of those “hate messages” promoted by conservative groups also puts the lives of human rights defenders at risk.
“Every time there is a homophobic, transphobic, or lesbophobic message coming from a leader, that means that a person of our community will die after,” lamented Banegas.
Advances in legislation
Regarding legislative advances in the Americas, experts mentioned some resolutions on sexual orientation adopted by the Organization of American States (OAS), or the Advisory Opinion Number 24 issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in November 2017. The latter recognizes that States have the duty and obligation to recognize people’s gender identity and to recognize marriages and families of same-sex couples.
However, Carlos Quesada said that civil society organizations still lack the technical training necessary to be able to use the Inter-American System and the Universal System properly.
“As a challenge, we have to train ourselves on how to use the national legislation but also on how to use the Inter-American System and the Universal System for the defense of the LGBTI population.”
Obstacles in legislation
Ivan Chanis Barahona, from the Iguales Foundation, explained that in Panama “there is no law or any public policy that recognizes gay, lesbian, trans, bisexual or intersex people,” and that the only law against discrimination does not include LGBTI persons.
Recently, according to Chanis, the refusal of the Panamanian authorities to register three same-sex marriages carried out in foreign countries started a national discussion on that issue. The topic has even been debated by the presidential candidates for the 2019 elections. “Panama is a country that has always respected human rights and the Inter-American System, but after this topic came to light, people started to dislike the Inter-American Court of Human Rights because of the Advisory Opinion on LGBTI rights.”
“The States in Latin America and especially in the Caribbean have failed in the modern world to protect their democracies by maintaining policies that are totally discriminatory towards LGBTI population,” Chanis emphasized.
Regarding the specific case of Honduras, Banegas said that in the new Criminal Code, discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity was penalized more lightly, and a Honduran law prohibits same-sex marriage. Besides, a recent reform to the Code for Children established that same-sex couples cannot adopt children.
“In Honduras, legislation is being adjusted to block LGBTI rights,” the activist complained.
However, he said that they are currently working on an “Equality and Equity Law,” a legal instrument that could provide more protection for the rights of the LGBTI population in Honduras if it is approved by Congress.
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LGBTIQ community is more vulnerable after the start of the crisis in Nicaragua, according to activists
Washington, DC. November 30th, 2018. The LGBTIQ community has been traditionally discriminated against, however, since the human rights crisis started in Nicaragua last April, the violations of their human rights have worsened. According to activists who spoke with the International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race and Equality), this community has suffered from discrimination and harassment in a more targeted and systematic way in recent months.
“Being gay or lesbian in Nicaragua, especially in this context where violence is more socially justified, puts us in a more vulnerable condition,” says Alex, a 25-year-old gay man who lives in a small city in northern Nicaragua. According to the young activist, they’re vulnerable “not only because we don’t agree with a totalitarian political system, but because we are considered sexual deviants.”
Alex adds that “in the street, they will not only attack you because you’re ‘Blue and White’ but they will also call you a ‘Blue and White’ faggot or a ‘Blue and White’ lesbo”.
He is one of thousands of citizens who joined the peaceful protests that at first demanded the annulment of reforms to the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute. The movement took the streets demanding justice and respect for human rights after the brutal governmental repression that has left as of now at least 325 dead, more than 2,000 people injured, and hundreds of persons who are political prisoners. People call them “Blue and White” because they use the Nicaraguan flag as a symbol of protest.
“Since I started participating in demonstrations, I’ve been being persecuted and attacked,” Alex shares, adding that groups of government-aligned men continually pass by his house on motorcycles and shouting phrases like “coup-plotter” or “faggot, we’re going to kill you.” “They put a lot of emphasis on my identity and my sexual and life choices”.
Francisca, a lesbian woman who prefers to omit her real name, explains that before the crisis, the LGBTIQ community had made significant progress regarding respect and equality. “But in these times of crisis, many things in which we had advanced, have receded,” she remarks.
Just like Alex, Francisca participated in the civic demonstrations. Soon after, she began to receive threats and was victim of an intense intimidation campaign through social networks.
“They threatened me directly, they told me things like ‘this is the dyke,’ or ‘look, we know where you live, get ready,’ or ‘we’re going to show you what a man is, maybe that’s how you will get well.’ They even sent lists on WhatsApp and Facebook saying I was pro-abortion and a crazy feminist.”
This situation, plus a telephone call in which she was warned that her capture was imminent, forced Francisca to flee her home. “I’ve been away from my house for almost five months, missing my family, missing everything I left there. I had to leave only with a backpack,” she stated.
Francisca now lives in a different city with her girlfriend. But the fear of being imprisoned is constant. Alex’s situation is similar. According to the activist, those who decided to stay in Nicaragua must live “practically in hiding.”
“I’ve been away from my house for almost five months, missing my family, missing everything I left there. I had to leave only with a backpack”. A 33-year-old lesbian woman.
On October 13th, the Nicaraguan Police prohibited any type of mobilization that was not authorized by that institution. One day later, a group of 38 citizens and activists were arrested by police officers for carrying out a sit-in without having requested such permits.
“We are in greater danger since there are no longer mobilizations. The State and its repressive machine have a greater ability to find you, look for you, and do anything with your life. Repression, arrests, and extrajudicial executions, including those for LGBT defenders, are more focused now,” explains Alex.
More aggressions
Transgender women have also suffered different types of aggression. “There are cases of transgender women who have been kidnapped by the police or paramilitary forces, who have been savagely assaulted, beaten, and left lying in the streets”. The aggressors threaten that the attacks are a demonstration of what will continue to happen to the ‘Blue and White’ people, says Dámaso Vargas, a 25-year-old transgender woman and activist from Managua.
One of the forms of protest that Dámaso exercised was abandoning the public education system. She was a senior high school student this year. “I disagree with everything that’s happening and for me, leaving school is also a way of saying that I will not continue to validate a State that is not really doing the work it should be doing,” she affirms.
Additionally, there are four trans women who are currently imprisoned in the men’s penitentiary system of La Modelo for having participated in the civic demonstrations, according to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH, for its initials in Spanish).
A case that has been broadly reported by national media is that of Victoria Obando, a 27-year-old trans woman and former student at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN-Managua), who barricaded herself in her university as a way of protest. She was arrested in late August and the authorities now accuse her of several crimes, including terrorism, murder, fire, kidnapping, armed robbery, and carrying out death threats.
“Victoria says they strip her in front of the rest of the inmates, policemen boo her and tell her things like ‘people who stay here are virile man, machos,’ knowing that we don’t want to feel that way and we don’t feel that way,” explains Dámaso, who says she feels powerless and sad in the face of such a situation.
Sexual violations have also become a form of repression. CENIDH has registered 12 cases of men and women who were victims of sexual violence during illegal detentions or kidnappings committed by parapolice men and police officers.
“Those are very terrible testimonies that currently can’t be brought to justice in this context precisely because there are no institutions that can investigate the authorities,” explains Wendy Flores, a lawyer at CENIDH, during the conversation “Women resisting repression” which was organized by DeHumo last week.
In the same conversation, Tania Sánchez denounced that a man tried to abuse her sister, Kisha López, a trans woman imprisoned in La Modelo. “Kisha defended herself and hit him with a broom in the ribs, because she says that regardless of what she is, they have to respect her,” Sanchez said.
Indigenous people
For indigenous communities, belonging to the LGBTIQ population results in a double factor of vulnerability, according to a gay Miskitu man who prefers to identify himself as Arturo.
Since 2013, 23 people from the LGBTIQ community have been murdered in the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua.
“Many people of different sexual orientation who are in the universities have been persecuted, have been watched over, because they (government-aligned people) fear that this issue that is happening in the western part of the country can start here also among young people,” says Arturo, a 35-year-old attorney.
According to the activist and lawyer, in the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua “the crisis is not only 7 months long.” He says that the situation of persecution “has remained throughout time due to the same exclusion and discrimination that the State powers have imposed on the indigenous communities.” And he provided the example that since 2013, 23 people from the LGBTIQ community have been murdered. “Persecution of this community is in the background of the crisis,” he reveals.
Arturo himself affirms he has been attacked and threatened on social networks, both for his sexual orientation and for “being a defender of human rights, specifically for promoting the collective rights of indigenous people.”
Their work will continue
Although human rights violations in the current context of crisis in Nicaragua are not exclusive to the LGBTIQ community, the activists who spoke with Race and Equality insisted on the need to make visible their problems and challenges.
As Alex mentioned, “the actions that we take every day, the meetings, the mobilization strategies, the contents spread on social media, the demands of our political prisoners, mainly those who belong to the LGBTIQ community, that is our motivation.”
Human rights defender was stripped of her Nicaraguan nationality and expelled arbitrarily by the authorities
Washington, D.C., November 27th 2018. Ana Quirós Víquez, Director of the Center for Health Information and Advisory Services (CISAS), a Nicaraguan citizen with dual nationality, was illegally expelled from Nicaragua on Monday, November 26th, after immigration authorities annulled the Nicaraguan nationality she had acquired 21 years ago.
The decision of the authorities is clearly arbitrary. Quirós, who was attending an appointment at the General Directorate of Migration and Foreign Affairs (DGME, for its initials in Spanish), was informed by a migration officer that a legal resolution annulling her Nicaraguan nationality had been issued. In addition, the authorities told her she was forbidden from returning to Nicaragua for the next five years. She was not allowed to exercise her right to defense or to appeal the decision, even though these rights are guaranteed under Nicaraguan law.
During an interview given by Quirós to the journalist Carlos Salinas from Confidencial, the activist stated that the authorities told her that the reason for the annulment of her nationality was because she had two nationalities (from Nicaragua and Costa Rica), and only citizens from Central American countries can have both Nicaraguan and Costa Rican nationality. When she asked the authorities if Costa Rica was not a Central American country, the officers remained silent.
Quirós, who is also part of the National Feminist Articulation and a member of the Blue and White National Unity (UNAB, for its initials in Spanish), was born in Costa Rica but has been living in Nicaragua for more than 40 years and was nationalized as a Nicaraguan citizen in 1997.
The activist, a 62-year-old woman, went to the DGME at 10 a.m. last Monday, to respond to a citation that she received two days before. Although the document did not explain what the reason for the citation was, she was warned that if she didn’t show up she would face legal consequences.
“The appointment in Migration was almost nothing. They told me that my nationality was canceled. I asked what the next step was and what my status was. They did not answer me. It was not until later in the afternoon that they read me the resolution to expel me from the country,” Quirós told reporters a day later from the capital city of Costa Rica.
A group of feminists, human rights defenders, and journalists remained for hours outside of the DGME after Quirós entered the building, but the authorities refused to give them any information about Ms. Quirós. The activist, however, had been transferred by noon to the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, better known as El Chipote.
“They put me in a temporary holding cell that is actually just a seat with bars,” said Quirós, who was fingerprinted and photographed during the detention. “They didn’t interrogate me, I wasn’t physically abused. But I did receive multiple verbal assaults, threats and constant intimidation,” she told journalists a day after she was expelled from Nicaragua.
At 6 pm on Monday, the General Consul of Costa Rica in Nicaragua, Oscar Camacho, stated on social media that the Costa Rican authorities had been informed that the Nicaraguan authorities were going to expel Quirós from Nicaragua
“They took me handcuffed in a bus, surrounded by armed police and accompanied by people from Migration in other vehicles to the southern border at Peñas Blancas. They insisted on not removing my handcuffs until we arrived, even once I got down from the bus I was still handcuffed. They took my shirt and my Nicaraguan hat. The entire way they were harassing me and verbally attacking me,” Quirós denounced.
Directed persecution
Vilma Núñez, President of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH, for its initials in Spanish), said that the actions against Quirós are part of “a directed persecution against all the people who support the claims of the people of Nicaraguan”.
Quirós has been one of the most active voices in the defense of human rights of Nicaraguans who demand democracy, justice and freedom in the context of the current human rights crisis that the country is going through.
In fact, the defender was one of the first victims of the repression that broke out in April. On the 18th of that month, during the first protest that took place in Managua, a mob of Government’s supporters hit her with a tube in her head, arms and the rest of her body. The picture in which she appeared covered in blood was distributed quickly through social media.
In the months that followed, Quirós said she was victim of “multiple threats in a systematic manner,” stating that “they came to visit our neighbors to ask where I was, and whenever I went to the airport they retained me in the migration offices, interrogating me,” she said from San José.
For the moment, the activist assured that she will continue to denounce from Costa Rica the human rights violations that occur in Nicaragua. In addition, she raised the possibility of suing the Nicaraguan State for its arbitrary expulsion from the country.
More women intimidated
On Monday, three Nicaraguan-based activists working with the Collective of Women from Matagalpa were also summoned by the DGME: the Swiss citizen Beatriz Huber and the Spanish sisters Ana and María Jesús Ara. The three of them were asked to sign a document in which they pledged to not participate in any more political activities if they wanted to remain in the country, according to the feminist defenders who accompanied them.
Juanita Jiménez, of the Autonomous Women’s Movement (MAM) of Nicaragua, warned that the process against Quirós and the three other activists from Matagalpa is framed “in that discourse of visceral hatred and disqualification that the Government is carrying out against the Nicaraguan feminism movement.”
Jiménez recalled that the last week, authorities denied authorization to feminist groups and citizens from the UNAB to march on November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights strongly rejects Nicaragua’s expulsion of the human rights defender Ana Quirós. This is another act of repression that comes from the Nicaraguan dictatorship that has plagued the country for more than seven months and that has been systematically demonstrated through assassinations, violations of the freedom of expression and social protest, intimidation of the media and independent journalists, excessive use of force by parapolice groups and police officers, irregular judicial processes and an atmosphere of collective fear that makes the freedom of the Nicaraguan people impossible. We ask the international community to continue to denounce the situation in Nicaragua and to keep paying attention to the serious humanitarian crisis that the country is going through.
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