In Nicaragua, indigenous human rights defenders continue to face arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and death in state custody, with complete impunity.
Brooklyn Rivera Bryan, a 73-year-old Miskitu indigenous leader, legislator, and historic defender of indigenous territorial rights on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast, died on 30 May 2026 after more than 970 days of enforced disappearance. He had been arrested on 29 September 2023 by at least 60 police officers who entered his home in Bilwi without a warrant, removing him in an ambulance used as a covert vehicle. Authorities only disclosed information about his critical health condition, including bacterial pneumonia, pulmonary aspergillosis, severe respiratory failure, and multi-organ failure, just days before his death. His family had received no independent or verifiable information throughout his detention. He is the seventh political prisoner to die in Nicaraguan state custody. Following his death, seven family members and friends who traveled to Managua to claim his remains disappeared on 31 May 2026, with authorities providing no information on their whereabouts.
Ignacio Celso Lino, Argüello Celso Lino, Donald Andrés Bruno Arcángel, and Dionisio Robins Zacarías, indigenous authorities and forest rangers of the Mayangna Sauni As Territory in the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve, have been held since 2021 at the Jorge Navarro Prison (“La Modelo”) following a deeply flawed judicial process. Arrested without warrants after a 2021 armed attack they did not commit, they were tried behind closed doors, denied interpreters despite Mayangna being their native language, and convicted to life imprisonment plus additional years without material evidence linking them to the crimes. Witnesses confirmed the attackers were non-indigenous, Spanish-speaking armed men. Since their transfer to prison in December 2021, the four defenders have been held in inhumane conditions, subjected to prolonged isolation, physical and sexual abuse, and denial of medical care. In October 2024, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared their detention arbitrary and called for their immediate release. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights had already ordered their release in June 2023. Neither decision has been complied with.
These cases reflect a broader, documented pattern of crimes against humanity in Nicaragua, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture targeting indigenous leaders, political opponents, and human rights defenders.
