{"id":175515,"date":"2025-09-28T00:28:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T06:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/confidencial.digital\/sin-categoria\/from-the-april-protests-to-silence-how-nicaragua-built-and-sustains-a-police-state\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T08:36:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T14:36:21","slug":"from-the-april-protests-to-silence-how-nicaragua-built-and-sustains-a-police-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/confidencial.digital\/en\/english\/from-the-april-protests-to-silence-how-nicaragua-built-and-sustains-a-police-state\/","title":{"rendered":"From the April Protests to Silence: How Nicaragua Built and Sustains a Police State"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Behind the apparent calm on the streets of Nicaragua lies a hidden repressive apparatus of control and fear. Seven years after a police memorandum<\/a> attempted to silence the April protests, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo maintains a de facto police state, disguised as peace, well-being, and normality. Their apparatus for surveillance and persecution has forced the population to refrain from discussing topics the government disapproves of, even among relatives and friends. The repression has also systematically extended into legal, social, and even transnational arenas. <\/p>\n\n

In this special report, CONFIDENCIAL<\/strong> documents the chronology of how the de facto police state was built and how it\u2019s maintained in Nicaragua.<\/p>\n\n

The official narrative, as promoted in the pro-government media and in \u201cmade-to-order\u201d<\/a> surveys, portrays a supposed approval rate of 86% for Ortega and Murillo. Meanwhile, any dissent is smeared as \u201cCoup-promotion.\u201d In her daily monologue, Murillo constantly evokes the image of a \u201cblessed\u201d Nicaragua, while sponsoring thousands of cultural and recreational activities every weekend to keep the population distracted within a false calm. <\/p>\n\n

The repression has achieved its main objective: to create a climate of fear and self-censorship. The threat of losing freedom, nationality, or personal property has silenced the vast majority of the population. The dictatorship also manipulates the situation to its advantage, claiming that actions such as banning religious processions are public safety decisions to avoid confrontation, when in fact they are just another act of censorship and control. <\/p>\n\n

Chronology of the police state in Nicaragua<\/h2>\n\n

After issuing a police order banning protests on September 28, 2018, the regime focused on eliminating any form of collective organization and dissent. Initially, repression took the form of physical violence. The first protest march, two days after the ban, was violently suppressed.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n

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Young people during a flash protest at a shopping mall in Managua in 2018. Photo: Archive | Confidencial <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

In response, the population organized \u201cflash demonstrations,\u201d \u201cexpress sit-ins,\u201d and small acts of citizen resistance, such as releasing blue and white balloons or confetti into the streets, putting up stickers, hanging banners, or bringing water to the mothers of political prisoners who staged a hunger strike <\/a>in a church surrounded by police. But the strategy of repression evolved further, to deter any citizen action. <\/p>\n\n

Eliminating any counterweight or criticism<\/h2>\n\n

The regime has not only resorted to violence, but has also systematically dismantled any counterweight to their authority \u2013 closing, attacking, confiscating, and censoring non-profit organizations, universities, and independent media outlets.<\/p>\n\n

That onslaught began in November 2018<\/a>, when the Nicaraguan National Assembly canceled the legal status of the first eleven NGOs. As of today, over 5,600 NGOs<\/a> have been cancelled, at least 1,300 of them church-affiliated.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n

The attack was extended to the independent press with the assault and confiscation of CONFIDENCIAL<\/strong><\/a> and 100% Noticias<\/a> in December 2018. The criminalization of journalism continued with over 60 citations and interrogations of journalists and media directors in the Attorney General\u2019s office, which led hundreds to flee the country. Nicaragua\u2019s oldest newspaper, La Prensa, with nearly a century of history behind it, was also assaulted and confiscated in August 2021. Today more than 50 media outlets have been shuttered. Some of them have succeeded in maintaining their work from exile, despite further attempts at censorship, such as cancelling the access of independent media websites to the \u201c.ni\u2019 web domain in March 2025. <\/p>\n\n

The goal of silencing all dissent has also extended to the universities and religious institutions. More than thirty private universities\u2014including the Jesuit-run Central American University (UCA)\u2014have been closed and confiscated. Using them as a springboard, the dictatorship has built a lucrative [higher education] business<\/a>, while promoting partisan indoctrination<\/a>. Similarly, the Catholic and Evangelical churches have been attacked, persecuted, and confiscated, and their bishops, priests, and pastors have been imprisoned and exiled.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n

More about this subject:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n