Types of Threat:
Attacks on Legislature
Due Process/Fair Trial Right Violations
Hate or "Dangerous" Speech
Closing Civic Space
Marginalised Groups Targeted
Persecution of MPs/HRDs
Disinformation Campaign
Limitations on Speech/Press
Judiciary Undermined
Parliamentarians worldwide call on the Government of Nicaragua to unconditionally release legislators and Miskitu indigenous leaders Mr. Brooklyn Rivera Bryan and Ms. Nancy Elizabeth Henríquez James, arbitrarily detained by the Ortega regime.
In September 2023, the Nicaraguan Government imprisoned Brooklyn Rivera and his parliamentary alternate Nancy Henríquez, alleging the commission of “crimes of treason, undermining the national integrity, conspiracy, and spreading false news”. These charges were confirmed by Nicaragua during sessions of the United Nation’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on 13 November 2024. During the UPR session, some States like Brazil and Norway expressed concern on human rights violations against indigenous and afro-descendant peoples as well as LGBTI persons.
On 29 September 2023, state agents entered Mr. Rivera’s home illegally. He was forcibly disappeared and his whereabouts today remain unknown. In April 2023, Mr. Rivera, then a Member of Parliament representing the YATAMA political party, attended the 22nd session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The Government of Nicaragua blocked his return. Mr. Rivera spent days abroad and, upon returning to Nicaragua, was allegedly persecuted by the police. On 1 October 2023, undercover police officers arbitrarily detained Nancy Henríquez and she remains in unknown conditions. Ms. Henriquez was subsequently sentenced to eight years in prison, after a sham trial carried-out at a women’s prison named La Esperanza. She was denied due process, including the right to legal representation.
Government representatives indicated that the National Assembly had stripped Mr. Rivera and Ms. Henriquez of their parliamentary prerogatives allegedly due to “abandoning their parliamentary labors for over 60 consecutive days, without just cause.” This determination consequently suspended their parliamentary immunity. The Prosecutor’s Office presented an indictment, which was admitted without any due process, trial or sentencing. Rivera’s family has filed two petitions of habeas corpus. Nicaraguan judicial authorities have denied these petitions.
A complaint was lodged before the Committee on the Rights of Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Delegates at the 149th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly heard the testimony and plea for parliamentary solidarity of Ms. Tininiska Rivera, the daughter of Mr. Rivera. The IPU’s Governing Council took a decision on these two cases at the 214th session on 17 October 2024, requesting the Committee to send a delegation to Nicaragua to meet with relevant authorities, calling on national parliaments and human rights organizations to take concrete action to help raise awareness, requesting the Secretary General to convey this decision to the National Assembly of Nicaragua and requesting the Committee to continue examining the cases of Mr. Rivera and Ms. Henríquez.
We, Members of Parliament, call on:
- Parliamentary colleagues around the world to raise awareness on the aforementioned cases; and
- Nicaraguan authorities to immediately release indigenous leaders Brooklyn Rivera and Nancy Henríquez.
