Orteguism has ten repressive laws and threatens more
By Yader Luna In Confidencial, April 1, 2021
In less than 6 months, between September 2020 and January 2021, the National Assembly of Nicaragua, controlled by Ortega, has approved a dozen repressive laws against the citizenry. This new repressive phase of the regime has not passed unnoticed on the international level, as the annual report on human rights of the State Department of the US Government shows, which this March 30th warned about the approval of “more and more repressive laws that severely limit the operational capacity of political opposition groups, civil society and independent media.” Nevertheless, the report took into consideration less than half of the approved laws, and in addition, political operators of Daniel Ortega are threatening to approve more similar laws.
This past January 18th the National Assembly approved in a second legislature a constitutional amendment that would allow life sentencing for “hate crimes” defined in general terms. This, like the rest of the punitive laws and norms, seek to immobilize and silence citizens and organizations that are troubling to the dictatorship, states María Asunción Moreno, a lawyer and expert in Penal Law and an academic participant in the Citizen Alliance.
“These norms approved by the regime are part of a process of suspending freedoms and rights, that began two years ago, but that are aimed at the complete elimination of constitutional freedoms and rights,” she warns.
Objective of repressive laws: keep Ortega in power
This entire combination of punitive laws and regulations violates the Constitution of Nicaragua and represents the prelude to the complete closing of electoral space in 2021, explains Moreno. Nevertheless, the president of the National Assembly, the Sandinista Gustavo Porras, stated on February 22 that they are progressing on the approval of a “legal framework” that seeks to prevent those who participated in the 2018 protests (which the ruling party describes as a “coup attempt”) from being able to participate in the elections planned for this November.
Porras said that the approved laws seek to show the “traitors”, who are “any one of those who have been out asking for intervention, have been out seeking sanctions, [advocating] that they take loans away from us, that have been leading the vandalistic groups.”
“All those who have participated in all these types of actions cannot be candidates for popular elections. What is our path? We are moving forward in developing a legal framework that would permit continuing the construction of the country that we want,” he warned on the state channel 4.
The ten approved laws and norms
Since September of last year, the Sandinista steamroller in the National Assembly started the approval of laws that, among other things, segregate Nicaraguans, attack freedom of expression, inhibit political participation and allow for illegal detentions.
Against NGOs: Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents and its regulations
The Ortega steamroller approved on October 15, 2020 the Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents, considered a violation of the rights of Nicaraguans, because it forces organizations as well as individuals who receive funds from outside the country to register as “agents” before the Ministry of the Interior (MIGOB), infringing their political rights to participation, among other public liberties.
The so-called “Putin Law”, which took effect four days after its approval, establishes that foreign agents are “any individual, Nicaraguan or of another nationality, or legal entity that within Nicaragua performs or works as agent, representative, employee, server or in any other activity who are supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized, completely or partially, by foreign individuals, governments, capital, businesses or funds directly or through individual or legal third parties.”
Article 14 of the Law established that those who receive foreign funds will not be able to carry out activities that, discretionally, the Government will be able to decide whether they are intervening in “issues of internal and external policy.”
More than a dozen opponents of the regime of Daniel Ortega and civil society organizations submitted an appeal against the law for being unconstitutional, because they think it violates at least 17 articles of the Constitution of Nicaragua. In addition, they expressed their concern because it leaves up to the criteria of the dictatorship the definitions of who is a foreign agent and what is foreign interference, which is why they are afraid that it can be applied against them in a discretional manner.
The regulations of Law 1040 published on January 29th state that those considered “foreign agents” will pay fines of up to US$300, for minor offenses, and $500,000 for major offenses. In addition, it indicates that they will be able to suspend temporarily or permanently the activities of a “foreign agent” for the commission of serious offenses. They can have their registration and legal status canceled if they carry out activities “contrary to their purposes and objectives.”
The Ministry of the Interior (MIGOB), through its recently created Registry of Foreign Agents (RAE), demands all those considered “foreign agents” to turn in a series of reports to control where their funds are from, what is the purpose of those funds, and how they are used.
The Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation (FVBCh), that promoted freedom of expression, announced on February 5th the suspension of operations as a consequence of the polemic law that sanctions those who receive financing and donations from outside the country. In addition, the Swedish NGO We Effect, which supported poor peasants for 35 years has closed operations because of this law, along with the Nicaraguan chapter of the International writers organization known as PEN, presided over by the writer Gioconda Belli.
Against freedom of expression: The Gag Law and control over public employees
The Ortega regime began to establish directives to impose a legal framework that would control and censure activity in cyberspace since Sept 29 of last year when through presidential decree, Daniel Ortega approved the National Cybersecurity Strategy, that seeks to impose a “muzzle” on state workers.
The decree defines as a source of “cyberthreat” “discontented employees”, which for defenders of the freedom of expression shows that “he does not have confidence” in public servants and seeks to avoid any type of leaks.
Less than a month later, the 70 votes of the ruling Sandinista Front in the National Assembly approved on October 27, 2020 the Special Cyber Crime Law, known as the “Gag Law”, that attempts to regulate content on the internet and silence critical voices of the adversaries of Ortega who make denouncements of human rights violations in Nicaragua.
The Law establishes penalties that go from two to eight years in jail for the commission of different crimes, among them the propagation of false news, the dissemination of confidential information of State institutions or unauthorized access to webpages of the Government for the modification or acquisition of information. Nevertheless, the entire application in the judgement of jurists is discretional because the regime describes as “false news” proven facts that expose their own lies.
Since September 30 of last year the Special Cybercrimes Law took effect, which according to the association of independent journalists, threatens freedom of the press, criminalizes investigative journalism and provides a green light to spying on private communications.
The law does not define two key concepts for its application: false information (fake news) and distorted information. In other words, it will be the judicial system, controlled by magistrates and judges partisan to Sandinism, who will have the discretion of deciding what is false information or whether the information produces alarm, fear or terror, warned the organization of Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN).
On January 29, 2021 the Ortega regime issued the regulations of the controversial “Muzzle Law” where it ordered all data and information that is generated in the telecommunications services in the country be saved for a year. The telephone companies in Nicaragua will have to collect different details and information that, among others things, can include the location of users, what type of mobile phones they are using, or what web pages they visit.
Life sentencing and constitutional reform
This past January 18th the National Assembly approved in a second legislative session, the constitutional amendment that will allow for life sentences for “hate crimes” in Nicaragua. The so-called life sentence law, which is an addition to article 37 of the Constitution, is described by human rights defenders and feminist organizations as a new “weapon” against opponents.
With this reform a new paragraph is added to article 37 of the Constitution that establishes a maximum sentence of 30 years, to which was added: “exceptionally a life sentence will be imposed on a person found guilty of serious crimes, when circumstances of cruel, degrading, humiliating and inhuman hate contribute, which because of their impact cause shock, rejection, indignation, repugnance in the national community.”
Now that the constitutional reform has been ratified in the second legislative session, the legislators must reform the Penal Code so that judges and magistrates can apply it and according to what the president of the National Assembly, the Sandinista Gustavo Porras, said, the issue will be a priority for the current legislature.
The so-called life sentence law was an order of the Ortega regime to punish, according to them, those who commit hate crimes in the country. The regime has used as an argument the murder of minors and women, in spite of the fact that feminist collectives have documented the lack of interest of the Government in punishing femicides.
Organizations, lawyers and opposition figures allege that, in contrast, this law is nothing more than a punishment that will be applied against those who dare to express themselves against the regime, because the term “hate crime” is ambiguous and its application can be discretional.
For the nine years of its existence, the “Holistic law against violence against women” or Law 779 has undergone three substantial reforms that, in contrast to its expressed spirit, moves it away from fulfilling its purpose: protecting women and ensuring a life without violence. A sign of this is the fact that femicides continue to increase. In 2020 there were 71 women killed, victims of machista violence.
The last reform approved on January 20th endorsed punishing crimes of aggravated murder, parricide and femicide with a life sentence. Nevertheless, opponents, lawyers and defenders of human rights and women have considered the law as a mechanism to punish the opposition.
Inhibitions disguised as “defense of sovereignty” and “self determination”
On December 21, 2020 the FSLN deputies approved the “Law for the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty and Self Determination for Peace,” send by Daniel Ortega, and which has been criticized for annulling political competition in the elections scheduled for November 2021.
The law prohibits the candidacies of those who the regime considers “coup mongers”, or who applaud “international sanctions”, imposed on officials of the regime accused of committing serious human rights violations. Representatives of the opposition have described the law as “totalitarian”, “repressive”, and “illegal”, because they state that its purpose is “give power to the Sandinista Front to decide who participates or not” in the elections.
It also establishes that Nicaraguans who “lead or finance a coup, which alters the constitutional order, who foment or urge terrorist acts, who carry out acts that harm independence, sovereignty and self-determination, that incite foreign interference in internal affairs, ask for military interventions, organize with financing from foreign powers to carry out acts of terrorism and destabilization…will be traitors of the country, which is why they will not be able to decide to run for popularly elected posts.”
Nor those who “propose and lobby for economic, commercial and financial operation blockades against the country and its institutions, those who demand, exalt and applaud the imposition of sanctions against the State of Nicaragua and its citizens and all those who harm the supreme interests of the nation.”
Illegal arrests: Reform to the Penal Processing Code
The Ortega deputies of the National Assembly approved on February 2, 2021 the reform and addition to Law 406, the Penal Processing Code of Nicaragua, to expand from 48 hours to up to 90 days the terms for which a person can be held under arrest without being accused, so that, according to the Sandinista arguments, “more profound” investigations can be carried out.
The new measure “is equal to doing away with the principle of the presumption of innocence”, in other words, “they arrest you, you are presumed guilty and then they investigate you”, denounced the lawyer and human rights defender, Gonzalo Carrión, from the Nicaragua Collective Never+Impunity.
The FSLN, denounced for keeping common and political prisoners without cause, even after the 48 hours that the Constitution established, reformed articles 253 and 254 of the Penal Processing Code to expand detention time to 15 and even 90 days.
The Interamerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has denounced since the April 2018 protests, that in Nicaragua “arbitrary and illegal detentions” persist against opponents. At least 1,614 people, from April 18, 2018 to May 31, 2020, were jailed for their participation or support for the social demonstrations, revealed a report presented last December by the OAS organization which details that political prisoners have suffered abuse and cruel treatment, overcrowding, and sexual violence, among other violations of their human rights in the penitentiary system.
By December 2020 the IACHR denounced that there were at least 113 political prisoners in Nicaragua in Daniel Ortega´s jails.
Benefitting those sanctioned: Reform of Law 842
The Ortega parliament approved on February 3, 2021 the reform and addition to Law 842 or “Law for the protection of the rights of consumers and users”, by which they define the State as a consumer and therefore will now have the ability to sue businesses, principally private banks.
The amendment allows that people sanctioned by the United States, accused of Human Rights violations or corruption, can reopen accounts in the banks in the country, which in turn can cause serious consequences against the national banking system, and infect the sectors of the economy that carry out international transactions.
The list of associates of the regime of Daniel Ortega who have been reached by the US sanctions is 27 people. In addition, the list includes nine public institutions or mixed entities, among them the National Police.
According to the Private Bank Association of Nicaragua (ASOBANP), this norm violates the right to free enterprise and exposed Nicaragua to being left outside the global financial system.
In that sense, they warned about the “closing of the accounts of the correspondent banks, the impossibility of receiving remittances, sending or receiving international transfers, closing lines of credit from outside the country and the cancelation of contracts with different brands of credit cards.”
The legal departments of the commercial banks of Nicaragua already are preparing the challenge to the constitutionality of Law 1061, which reforms Law 842, known now as the law in “defense of the sanctioned.”