UN experts accuse Nicaragua's Ortega and Murillo of crimes against humanity A UN expert group says there are reasonable grounds to believe Nicaragua's co-presidents committed crimes against humanity and calls the government a dictatorship aimed at permanent dynastic rule. United Nations human rights experts said Wednesday that Nicaragua's co-presidents have established a dictatorship and that there are reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed. The Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua has been investigating allegations of human rights violations and abuses in the country since April 2018. Nicaragua's government denies the allegations. The experts said they documented actions by husband-and-wife leaders Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo aimed at eliminating opposition through arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, political persecution and stripping opponents of their citizenship.Ortega And Murillo Establish DictatorshipWhat we are looking at is a full dictatorship, and that dictatorship has one clear goal: permanent dynastic rule, Jan-Michael Simon, chair of the group appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, told UN reporters. Four months ago, Daniel Ortega said it loud - Nicaragua will never hold elections again, Simon said. Nicaragua responded by calling the Human Rights Council, a UN agency it has withdrawn from, manipulated, obsolete and interfering.It accused neo-colonialist powers of weaponizing human rights for political aggression. The government of Ortega and Murillo has held power since mass protests in 2018 led to a bloody crackdown that killed hundreds. Ortega declared himself the winner of the 2021 election, a vote widely viewed as illegitimate by the international community, after jailing all the candidates who could have possibly beaten him. The United States does not recognize Ortega's presidency.Nicaragua's government has imprisoned or exiled adversaries, religious leaders, journalists and more, stripping hundreds of their citizenship, homes and possessions. Since 2018, it has shuttered more than 5,000 organizations, largely religious, and forced thousands to flee the country. The government often accuses critics and organizations it targets of working for the U.S. and its enemies to undermine its power.Sandinista Party Controls All InstitutionsReed Brody, a member of the UN expert group, said Nicaragua's ruling Sandinista Party has total control over the police, courts and prisons. Under the constitution adopted last year, the legislature and judiciary are no longer independent but controlled by the co-presidents. There are no opposition parties left, no independent press inside the country, and no critical nongovernmental organizations, said Brody, a Hungarian American human rights lawyer and prosecutor. There is simply no space left for anyone to disagree.Since February 2023, Brody said, at least 452 Nicaraguans considered political opponents have been declared traitors and stripped of their citizenship, leaving them stateless. They include former Sandinista leaders, a former vice president and all presidential candidates from 2021. A transnational surveillance network also monitors, intimidates, and attacks the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans abroad, he said. The Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua has found reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed, Brody said.Experts Urge International Court ActionThe experts urge countries to bring a case against Nicaragua to the International Court of Justice, the UN's highest tribunal, for violating the convention on statelessness, he said. Nicaragua, however, is not a party to the International Criminal Court. Images from 2018 show Ortega and Murillo leading a rally in Managua, the capital, on Sept. 5 of that year. Ortega and Murillo remain in power as the expert group calls for international legal action over their treatment of opponents.