HRC41 – Item 10 General Debate, including oral update on Georgia and oral update on Nicaragua (item 2)

Statement by the International Federation for Human Rights Leagues (FIDH)

11 July 2019

Madam High Commissioner,

FIDH and its member organisation in Nicaragua, [the Nicaraguan Centre for
Human Rights] (CENIDH), regret that the government has not fulfilled the
agreements to which it had committed to in the National Dialogue established
with the “Alianza Civica”, and the suspension of the Dialogue. While some
political prisoners have been released, they remain criminally prosecuted and
persecuted. In addition, 84 political prisoners remain in prison, and must be
freed.

We are alarmed by the setting-up of two parastatal structures that aim to

further the government’s control over its own citizens:
1. the existing Councils of Citizen Power have been transformed in a pro-
governmet partisan network of citizens, and now spies on individuals, and
denounces those that do not actively support governmental policies;
2. the Council of defenders of the Homeland, a pro-government structure, is
composed of individuals demobilized from the army, police and the former
State security forces, and citizens who are given military training.

In the wake of these developments, we urge the [Human Rights] Council to

take stronger measures to curb the continuing democratic and human rights
crisis and avoid an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the region.

The government of Nicaragua should implement the calls made in resolution

A/HRC/RES/40/2 [during the last Council session], and grant free and
unfettered access to the country to [the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights] (OHCHR), as well as to other international human rights
mechanisms.