US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions on more than 100 Nicaraguan officials linked to the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship, following the death of political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera. The Trump administration “took decisive steps to impose additional visa restrictions on more than 100 officials of the dictatorship and their family members,” Rubio said in a statement on June 8. With this new set of restrictions, the US government has now imposed visa restrictions on more than 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their family members for their role in supporting Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega’s regime.
Since 2007, Ortega and Murillo, his wife and co-president, have established an authoritarian regime in Nicaragua. They have repressed opposition through arrests, exile and violence, suppressed civil rights, annulled elections, and persecuted the Church. The measure responds to the “dictatorship’s responsibility for the horrific death of political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera,” according to the State Department statement. Rivera, an indigenous leader and political prisoner, died at age 73 after being held incommunicado for more than 970 days under the Murillo-Ortega regime.
Nicaragua’s Ministry of Health said on May 31 that despite medical efforts, Rivera died due to physical and neurological deterioration from a bacteria generated by COVID-19. Rubio alleged that Lumberto Ignacio Campbell Hooker, a US-sanctioned loyalist of the regime, was directly involved in denying Rivera medical attention and preventing his family from burying his remains. At least six of Rivera’s relatives remain in custody, according to the US Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
Visa restrictions increase pressure on the dictatorship, which for years has carried out systematic persecution against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. That persecution has included restrictions on sacraments and Mass, increased surveillance, enforced disappearances and arrests, exile of bishops, priests, and nuns, forced closure of Catholic institutions, and prohibitions on ordinations in dioceses whose bishops are in exile. In a social media post, Rubio called the Murillo-Ortega regime “an enemy of humanity,” adding that “the Trump administration will not ignore its crimes and brutality.”