US imposes journey bans on over 100 Nicaraguan officers amid human rights considerations

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has positioned journey bans on greater than 100 Nicaraguan officers and their members of the family as a part of a broader marketing campaign to punish the present authorities for human rights abuses.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in an announcement on Monday that the brand new sanctions had been imposed partly due to the dying final month of an imprisoned activist, Brooklyn Rivera, who criticized the insurance policies of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his spouse and co-president Rosario Murillo.

“The United States stands with the Nicaraguan people who, like Rivera, aspire to see a free Nicaragua,” Rubio stated.

Nicaragua’s authorities didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The U.S. has now barred greater than 2,350 Nicaraguan officers and members of the family from coming into. The identities of the newest ones weren’t launched.

In a publish on X, the U.S. Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs famous that six of Rivera’s members of the family and associates had gone lacking, and condemned their disappearance.

In April, the Trump administration slapped sanctions on two sons of Nicaragua’s husband-and-wife co-presidents.

Rivera was a famend Indigenous chief who spent years combating for the rights of his neighborhood and was imprisoned by the federal government in September 2023. His arrest got here throughout a yearslong crackdown on civil society and dissent, which started following mass protests in 2018 that the federal government violently repressed.

Nicaragua’s authorities has stated Rivera died from a bacterial an infection after his well being had declined following a case of COVID-19, which led to his bodily and neurological deterioration.

Human rights activists and teams worldwide denounced his dying, and the U.S. had referred to as for his launch when the federal government printed pictures of him within the hospital in important situation.

Nicaragua’s authorities has additionally imprisoned adversaries, spiritual leaders, journalists and extra, then exiled them, stripping a whole lot of their citizenship and possessions. Since 2018, it has shuttered greater than 5,000 organizations, largely spiritual, and compelled 1000’s to flee the nation.