The Ignored Dictatorship of Nicaragua: Legalization of the Authoritarian Regime and the Constant Deterioration of Human Rights

[Tomás Cristóbal Alonso Sandoval Tomás has a PhD in Advanced Studies in Human Rights (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), and is a lawyer, international litigator, university professor, and researcher]

The Forgotten Dictatorship: An Authoritarianism Operating in Silence

The expression “forgotten dictatorship” accurately describes the Nicaraguan situation because, although international organizations have documented serious, systematic, and ongoing human rights violations, the country’s crisis does not receive diplomatic or media attention proportional to its gravity. This invisibilization stems from structural, geopolitical, and regional factors that have allowed repression to advance in near-total silence. Nicaragua does not occupy a strategic place in global geopolitics, maintains a limited international presence, lacks high-value natural resources, and is not a relevant military actor; consequently, it does not represent a risk to international stability, which contributes to keeping the country outside the global spotlight.

In an international system driven by interests, the absence of strategic incentives lowers the country’s diplomatic priority. Added to this is the fact that the region is experiencing multiple simultaneous crises—Venezuela, Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico—which saturate the international agenda and push Nicaragua into the background, even when GHREN and IACHR reports describe patterns that could constitute crimes against humanity.

Latin America’s political fragmentation also contributes to this indifference. Some governments maintain ideological affinity with the Nicaraguan regime or prefer to avoid confrontations that could affect regional alliances, weakening collective pressure in organizations such as the OAS or CELAC. At the same time, the total closure of civic space within the country—no independent press, no NGOs, no autonomous universities, and thousands of people in exile—reduces international visibility and limits the ability to generate pressure from within. Diplomatic fatigue in the face of prolonged crises and the perception of stagnation worsen this scenario, while the absence of a massive migratory impact comparable to Venezuela or the Northern Triangle further reduces international attention. In this context, the dictatorship operates under low external pressure, consolidating an isolated authoritarianism that advances without global scrutiny.

Human Impact: Victims, Exile, and Daily Repression

The human dimension of the Nicaraguan crisis is profound and devastating. Since 2018, more than 600,000 people have left the country, generating one of the largest proportional exoduses in Latin America. Arbitrary detentions, torture, temporary disappearances, and inhumane conditions in centers such as El Chipote have been documented by OHCHR and GHREN. Political prisoners have faced prolonged isolation, lack of medical care, coercive interrogations, and degrading treatment. Repression affects not only visible opponents but also students, farmers, journalists, human rights defenders, and ordinary citizens who express discontent. State violence has created a collective trauma that shapes daily life and fuels fear as a tool of political control.

The Legal Framework of Authoritarianism: Repression, Electoral Control, and Institutional Capture

Since 2018, Nicaragua has undergone a profound transformation of its legal system through the adoption of repressive laws, constitutional reforms, electoral modifications, and administrative decisions that, according to the IACHR, OHCHR, and GHREN, form a normative structure designed to consolidate a police state, eliminate political pluralism, and guarantee the regime’s permanence in power. This process has produced a legal framework incompatible with international human rights standards and the essential principles of representative democracy. The juridification of Nicaraguan authoritarianism is not spontaneous but a deliberate strategy of institutional capture, neutralization of dissent, and reconfiguration of the political system through the instrumental use of law.

Repressive Block

The Amnesty Law (2019) granted impunity to state and paramilitary agents responsible for extrajudicial executions, torture, disappearances, and arbitrary detentions during the 2018 repression, despite the Inter-American Court’s categorical prohibition of amnesties for serious human rights violations since Barrios Altos v. Peru, reiterated in La Cantuta, Gelman, and El Mozote. The Special Cybercrimes Law (2020) criminalizes the dissemination of “false” or “distorted” information—vague categories that allow the prosecution of journalists and opponents, in open contradiction with the Court’s jurisprudence in Kimel v. Argentina and Herrera Ulloa v. Costa Rica. The Foreign Agents Regulation Law (2020) forces organizations receiving foreign funds to register as “foreign agents,” prohibiting them from participating in political activities and facilitating the cancellation of NGOs, universities, and media outlets, violating inter-American standards on freedom of association. Law 1055 (2020) allows opponents to be declared “traitors to the homeland” and barred from elections, reproducing the pattern of political exclusion condemned in Yatama v. Nicaragua. The 2021 reform to the Code of Criminal Procedure, which extended pretrial detention to 90 days, violates the right to immediate judicial control recognized in Tibi v. Ecuador and Bayarri v. Argentina. Law No. 1115 (2022) enabled the cancellation of more than 3,500 organizations, severely affecting freedom of association. Finally, the 2021–2023 migration reforms and the 2023 Nationality Law reform enabled the mass denationalization of more than 300 people, despite the Court’s finding that such practices are arbitrary in Expelled Dominicans and Haitians v. Dominican Republic.

Persecution of the Church

An additional component deepening the authoritarian nature of the regime is the systematic persecution of the Church and religious institutions, which had become one of the last spaces of social cohesion and moral resistance. Since 2018, priests, bishops, congregations, and organizations linked to social ministry have been subjected to surveillance, harassment, arbitrary detentions, expulsions, and confiscations. This process has been legally facilitated by Law No. 1115, which enabled the mass cancellation of legal entities—including educational, charitable, and media institutions linked to the Church—as well as the extensive application of the Cybercrimes Law (Law No. 1042) and Law 1055, used to criminalize critical religious discourse under accusations of “spreading false news” or “treason.” The closure of Catholic media, intervention in universities and social works, prohibition of public processions and liturgical activities, and criminalization of religious leaders form part of a strategy aimed at dismantling any voice capable of influencing public opinion or accompanying victims of repression. This offensive not only violates religious freedom but also integrates into the broader pattern of state repression, reinforcing the logic of the “internal enemy” and consolidating total control over the country’s social, spiritual, and community life.

Electoral Block

The Reform and Addition to the Electoral Law (Law No. 1070, 2021) restricted independent electoral observation, allowed the cancellation of parties based on vague criteria, and granted the Supreme Electoral Council discretionary powers to register or reject candidacies, violating the standards of free and authentic elections established in Castañeda Gutman v. Mexico. Previous reforms, consolidated between 2018 and 2024, enabled indefinite presidential re-election, even though Advisory Opinion OC-28/21 declared that indefinite re-election is not a human right and undermines democratic alternation. The mass cancellation of parties, including Citizens for Liberty, eliminated political pluralism and restricted the right to be elected, protected in Yatama and Castañeda Gutman.

Constitutional Block

Between 2021 and 2024, Articles 118, 125, 132, 159, and 160 of the Constitution were reformed, affecting the structure of the Judiciary, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and other state bodies. These reforms eliminated institutional checks and balances, enabled appointments aligned with the Executive, and consolidated a judicial system subordinated to political power, contradicting inter-American jurisprudence on judicial independence, such as López Lone v. Honduras and Apitz Barbera v. Venezuela.

Digital Authoritarianism: Surveillance, Censorship, and Technological Control

The regime has consolidated a model of digital authoritarianism that complements legal and police repression. The Cybercrimes Law allows criminalization of social media posts, while the state has developed mechanisms for digital surveillance, communication monitoring, and platform control. Censorship of digital media, website blocking, persecution of administrators of critical pages, and surveillance of mobile devices form part of a strategy aimed at eliminating any autonomous space of expression. This technological control reinforces fear, inhibits social organization, and turns the digital environment into an extension of the repressive apparatus.

Foreign Policy: Strategic Alliances to Shield Authoritarianism

The regime’s foreign policy has been instrumental to its survival. The rupture with the OAS, expulsion of international organizations, and rapprochement with Russia, China, and Iran have allowed the government to obtain political support, technical cooperation, and diplomatic backing against international condemnation. These alliances reinforce the narrative of sovereignty and anti-interventionism while facilitating agreements on security, technology, and surveillance. The regime’s selective isolation does not imply international disconnection but rather a reorientation toward actors that do not demand democratic standards or respect for human rights.

The Role of the Army and Police: Pillars of State Control

The National Police has become the main instrument of repression, acting as a political force rather than a citizen security body. Its militarization, direct subordination to the Executive, and involvement in arbitrary detentions, torture, and systematic surveillance have been widely documented by the UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) , and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International  have also reported the existence of pro-government paramilitary structures operating with state tolerance and functional coordination with the police. The Army, for its part, maintains a posture of functional neutrality that benefits the regime: it does not intervene to stop abuses, allows the actions of armed pro-government groups, and reinforces the official narrative of stability. This combination of a repressive police force and a passive army constitutes a central pillar of Nicaraguan authoritarianism.

Democratic Urgency: A Country Without Signs of Political Opening

The set of laws, reforms, and practices described constitutes a pattern of serious and systematic violations that activates the State’s international responsibility. The structural impunity generated by Law 996, arbitrary criminal prosecution, censorship, elimination of political pluralism, and subordination of the Judiciary constitute breaches of the obligations of respect, guarantee, and normative adequacy. International responsibility is aggravated when violations are widespread and systematic, as the Court noted in Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras.

The Nicaraguan case fits within a regional trend of democratic erosion through the instrumental use of law. Venezuela has resorted to “hate laws,” electoral control, and judicial co-optation; El Salvador has used constitutional reforms and a permanent state of exception; Guatemala has experienced selective judicial persecution. Nicaragua shares with these cases the logic of legalistic authoritarianism: using law to destroy the rule of law from within. This process is articulated through an enemy-oriented criminal law that constructs the figure of the “traitor,” expands punitive power, weakens procedural guarantees, and normalizes exceptionality. Law 1055, the Cybercrimes Law, and the extension of pretrial detention exemplify a criminal law aimed at neutralizing individuals considered enemies of the dominant political project.

Given this panorama, it is evident that Nicaragua’s democratic reconstruction is not only an institutional challenge but an urgent historical necessity. The indefinite permanence of those who currently control power has closed participation spaces, dismantled checks and balances, and established an authoritarian model that operates normally precisely because it does not generate significant international pressure. It is a regime that produces victims, destroys the rule of law, and yet remains on the margins of global attention. Restoring democracy requires the departure of those who have captured the institutions and the opening of a process that allows civic life to be rebuilt, rights restored, and trust in a devastated political system reestablished. However, no clear signs of political opening are visible in the short term. Even so, history shows that even the most consolidated authoritarian regimes face limits, and that social demands for freedom, justice, and dignity eventually open cracks in systems that seek to perpetuate themselves. The current stagnation does not mean that a democratic transition is impossible.

Proposals for Democratic Reconstruction

Exiting authoritarianism requires a comprehensive process based on international standards. Essential measures include: the immediate release of political prisoners; the safe return of exiled persons; the repeal of repressive laws; the restoration of legal status to organizations; the reconstruction of judicial independence; the vetting of police forces; the guarantee of independent electoral observation; and the creation of transitional justice mechanisms ensuring truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-repetition. The international community must play an active role through technical assistance, permanent monitoring, and support for civil society. Democratic reconstruction will not be automatic or quick, but it is the only path to restoring dignity, freedom, and the rule of law in Nicaragua.

Photo attribution: Photo by İpek Dükel on Unsplash