Jun 09 (IPS) – CIVICUS discusses Nicaragua’s withdrawal from the United Nations Instructional, Scientific and Cultural Group (UNESCO) and different worldwide organisations with Wisthon Noguera, an activist, scholar and deputy coordinator of the Nationwide Youth Platform of Nicaragua.
In Might, the Nicaraguan authorities introduced its withdrawal from UNESCO after the organisation awarded the World Press Freedom Prize to La Prensa, a Nicaraguan newspaper working in exile. The regime branded the newspaper a traitor and accused it of inciting overseas interference. The federal government’s transfer comes as a part of a scientific offensive in opposition to press freedom and means an extra lack of worldwide area for Nicaraguan civil society.
Why did Nicaragua withdraw from UNESCO?
This departure is the most recent episode in a technique of isolation that started in early 2025. The regime has systematically deserted United Nations companies which have questioned its rule. First got here the Meals and Agriculture Group in February, after it ranked Nicaragua among the many international locations with the very best ranges of starvation on the earth. President Daniel Ortega denounced ‘interventionist tendencies’ and closed the company’s workplaces.
This was adopted by a symbolic withdrawal from the Human Rights Council after its specialists advisable that the state be introduced earlier than the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice for stripping over 450 individuals of their nationality. And in late February, Nicaragua additionally left the Worldwide Labour Group and the Worldwide Group for Migration after receiving reform suggestions from them. This sample repeated in Might with the departure from UNESCO.
The logic is straightforward: the regime rejects any physique that questions it, in search of to consolidate absolute management by eliminating all exterior oversight.
What does this resolution reveal in regards to the regime’s repressive technique?
Its technique of worldwide isolation reinforces inner management, which intensified after the crackdown on 2018 protests. Since then, the regime has launched a relentless offensive in opposition to civil society organisations, unbiased media and universities.
Journalists have paid the very best worth. Notable circumstances such because the homicide of Ángel Gahona and the enforced disappearance of Fabiola Tercero illustrate the risks of exercising freedom of expression. The result’s devastating: 283 journalists have been compelled into exile, media shops comparable to La Prensa function from overseas with huge limitations, and a local weather of concern and self-censorship now prevails inside Nicaragua.
The schooling sector can be struggling the implications. UNESCO’s departure weakens academic programmes simply because the regime has expropriated universities, eradicated public funding and revoked the authorized standing of a minimum of 37 academic establishments, together with the emblematic Central American College.
In the meantime, the regime has carried out constitutional modifications to legalise authoritarianism, additional weakening the separation of powers and shutting the few remaining areas for democratic participation. Its intention is to eradicate any type of inner or exterior oversight and silence all vital voices, together with these resisting from exile.
Are different international locations within the area on the identical trajectory?
Nicaragua is a part of a worrying regional authoritarian development. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has additionally restricted civil society organisations by means of laws such because the Overseas Brokers Regulation, which imposes a 30 per cent tax on overseas donations. Each governments use comparable methods to limit freedom of affiliation and the funding of unbiased media and organisations.
They’re even collaborating with US immigration insurance policies for revenue: whereas El Salvador negotiates the reception of deportees from the USA in trade for funding for its prisons, Nicaragua receives them in secret. This underlines the pressing have to strengthen regional civil society networks and develop widespread methods in opposition to authoritarianism.
How is Nicaraguan civil society resisting?
Repression has decimated civil society, however has not eradicated it solely. Since 2018, over 5,600 organisations have been dissolved, ensuing within the nearly complete dismantling of the nationwide civic material. The few remaining organisations function underneath strict state supervision and don’t have any actual autonomy.
Inside resistance is just about non-existent as a result of huge dangers concerned, however the diaspora retains worldwide condemnation alive in exile. Exiled organisations doc the implications of authoritarianism and urge host governments to take stronger measures in opposition to the regime.
Nevertheless, resistance requires greater than declarations. Civil society wants efficient safety mechanisms for at-risk activists and journalists, in addition to sustainable funding to allow them to proceed working from exile. Worldwide dedication to democracy and human rights in Nicaragua should translate into tangible actions of solidarity that strengthen civic resistance, inside and outdoors the nation.
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