Daniel Ortega makes dozens of opponents stateless, which violates laws and treaties

The stripping of the nationality of 317 Nicaraguan opponents or critics of the government of President Daniel Ortega violates the Political Constitution of Nicaragua, as well as a series of international instruments and treaties, according to humanitarian organizations and legal experts.

The Nicaraguan authorities have withdrawn the nationality of 317 Nicaraguans in the last eight days, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez, sentenced to more than 26 years in prison after refusing to be exiled by the Ortega government to US territory.

The writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli; the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez; the veteran human rights defender Vilma Núñez, the journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the former commander Luis Carrión, other former comrades in arms of Ortega, among others, appear on that list of Nicaraguans declared stateless by the judicial authorities of that country.

The Nicaraguan Constitution prohibits depriving of nationality

Article 20 of the Political Constitution of Nicaragua says: “No national can be deprived of his nationality. The quality of Nicaraguan national is not lost by the fact of acquiring another nationality.”

And article 21 of the Constitution, reformed last week in the first of two legislatures, establishes: “The acquisition, loss and recovery of nationality will be regulated by law. Traitors to the homeland lose the quality of Nicaraguan national.”

The reformed constitutional article, the 21st, must be approved in a second legislature for it to enter into force, that is, next year, argued the Nicaragua Nunca Más Human Rights Collective, in a statement.

The special Law that regulates the loss of Nicaraguan nationality, promoted and approved by the Sandinistas in an expeditious manner last week, does not respect the legal system explained the Collective.

The process is full of legal irregularities

That body also alleged that “the Ortega Murillo regime violated the principle of legality, the right to equality and non-discrimination, leaves people stateless, did not respect the guarantees of due process and the special protection of children “.

mentioned.

Therefore, for this Collective “the resolutions disguised as legality of the Court of Appeals of Managua are unconstitutional and arbitrary” and are part of “the continuity of repression, the execution of legal atrocities through penalties and punishments against those who think differently and have raised their voices demanding justice, truth and non-repetition”.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, calls on Nicaragua to respect its international obligations and recalls that arbitrarily stripping of nationality is prohibited by international law.

The American countries between condemnation, caution and silence

So far the strongest reaction has been from the Chilean governmentled by the progressive Gabriel Boric and who classifies the administration of Daniel Ortega as a “totalitarian dictatorship.”

the warmth of Columbia and Mexico. The Government of Mexico, led by the also progressive Andrés Manuel López Obrador, declared on Thursday “attentive” to the events in the Central American country. The government headed in Colombia by the leftist Gustavo Petro expressed this Friday his “concern” about the recent events in Nicaragua.

The silence of **Argentina and Brazil.**Other progressive governments in the region, such as those of Argentina and Brazil, have not spoken publicly about the recent events in Nicaragua.

the condemnation of USA.

“They are and will be Nicaraguans”

Nearly 500 intellectuals and writers from all over the world expressed their concern about the “abuses” and “violations of human rights” by the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and expressed their solidarity with the Nicaraguans who have been deprived of your nationality.

Winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature as the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa (2010) and the Turkish Orhan Pamuk (2006), the Mexicans Elena Poniatowska, Juan Villoro, Guillermo Arriaga and Jorge Volpi; the Frenchman Emmanuel Carrère; the Spanish Enrique Vila-Matas and Manuel Vilas; the british of indian origin Salman Rushdie; the Panamanian singer-songwriter Ruben Blades and the American journalist John Lee Anderson, among others, sign a letter expressing their feelings regarding these events with the slogan “They are and will be Nicaraguans.”

The signatories of the letter, among them also the American Jonathan Franzenthe Colombian Héctor Abad Faciolince and the Chilean Jorge Edwardsdenounce that “these facts violate the fundamental human right to have a nationality and the prohibition to arbitrarily deprive any human being of it.”

What is statelessness? The UN definition

International law defines a stateless person as “a person who is not considered to be his national by any State under its law”. More simply, this means that a stateless person does not have the nationality of any country. Some people are already born stateless, while others become stateless.

There are stateless people in all regions of the world. Most of them were born in the countries where they have lived all their lives.

What are the consequences of being stateless in personal life? The UN responds

“Statelessness often impacts those affected severely and for life. The millions of people around the world who are denied a nationality are fighting for the same fundamental rights that most of us take for granted. Often , are excluded from the beginning to the end of their lives, denied a legal identity at birth, access to education, health care, marriage or job opportunities throughout their lives, and even the dignity of receive an official burial and have a death certificate issued when they die. In many cases they pass statelessness on to their children, who in turn pass it on to subsequent generations.”

Arbitrarily stripping of nationality violates international treaties

There are a number of international treaties that protect the right to possess a nationality and prevent making people stateless. The professor of International and Constitutional Law at the Central University of Chile, Edgardo Riveros Marintold the EFE news agency that “By arbitrarily depriving a person of their nationality, a series of international instruments and treaties are being violated.”

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What are the treaties that protect against statelessness?**

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

Article 15

1. “Every person has the right to a nationality.”

2. “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality or of the right to change their nationality.”

American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, 1948

Article 19 – Right of nationality

“Every person has the right to the nationality that legally corresponds to him and the right to change it, if

It wishes so, for that of any other country that is willing to grant it.”

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966

This pact was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1966 and entered into force on March 23, 1976. As of May 2012 the Convention had been ratified by 167 states.

article 24, paragraph 3

3. “Every child has the right to acquire a nationality.”

The pact develops the civil and political rights and the freedoms included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José), of 1969

Article 20. Right to Nationality

1. “Every person has the right to a nationality.”

2. “Every person has the right to the nationality of the State in whose territory he was born

if he has no right to another.”

3. “No one will be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality or the right to change it.”

Convention on the Rights of the Child

Article 7

1. “The child will be registered immediately after birth and will have the right from birth to a name, to acquire a

nationality and, as far as possible, to know their parents

and to be cared for by them.”

2. “The States Parties shall ensure the application of these rights of

accordance with their national legislation and the obligations they have

contracted under the relevant international instruments in

this sphere, particularly where the child would otherwise be stateless.”

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