Weekly Report - 24 September 2026 (WR-26-38)

The panel of human rights experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) appointed by the United Nations has issued a new report warning that Nicaragua’s authoritarian government, led by co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, has “weaponised enforced disappearance to crush dissent and control the population”. The report by the panel, which was set up in March 2022 to investigate all alleged human rights violations and abuses committed since April 2018, when the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional government began a brutal crackdown on dissent, follows another similarly damning report recently released by the UN. Both reports come as the Ortega-Murillo government is again facing international pressure following new changes to the constitution which, among other things, effectively exclude the opposition from participating in future elections [WR-26-36].