Nicaraguan officials committed 'systematic repression,' UN says

(Reuters) - The United Nations on Thursday named 54 officials from Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's government who it said are responsible for serious human rights violations and crimes, in what was described as a "tightly coordinated system of repression."

The officials cited include military officers and members of the ruling party.

In a 234-page report, the UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua revealed structures of systematic repression that quelled anti-government protests that erupted in 2018 and left at least 350 dead and hundreds detained.

The officials named "played key roles in arbitrary detentions, torture, extrajudicial executions, persecution of civil society and the media, denationalization campaigns, and the confiscation of private property," a statement accompanying the report said.

The UN experts also underscored how Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, who serves as Nicaragua's co-president after a recent constitutional reform, have built a centralized and repressive regime that has co-opted all branches of government and blurred the boundaries between party and state.

"What we uncovered is a tightly coordinated system of repression, extending from the presidency down to local officials," Ariela Peralta, one of the experts, said in the statement.

"These are not random or isolated incidents – they are part of a deliberate and well-orchestrated state policy carried out by identifiable actors through defined chains of command."

Among those mentioned in the report are the head of the army, Julio Cesar Aviles; the police national director, Francisco Diaz; presidential security adviser, Nestor Moncada; and the attorney general, Ana Julia Guido.

Murillo did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The army and attorney general's office also did not respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Editing by Leslie Adler)