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UNITED NATIONS — <\/span>United Nations human rights experts said Wednesday that Nicaragua\u2019s co-presidents<\/a> have established a dictatorship and that there are \u201creasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed.”<\/p>\n The expert group has been investigating allegations of human rights violations and abuses<\/a> in Nicaragua, which the country\u2019s government denies, since April 2018. The U.N. experts said they have documented actions by husband-and-wife leaders Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo aimed at eliminating opposition through arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, political persecution and stripping opponents of their citizenship.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we are looking at is a full dictatorship, and that dictatorship has one clear goal: permanent dynastic rule,\u201d Jan-Michael Simon, chair of the group appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, told U.N. reporters. \u201cFour months ago, Daniel Ortega said it loud \u2014 Nicaragua will never hold elections again.<\/a> \u201d<\/p>\n In response, Nicaragua called the Human Rights Council \u2014 a U.N. agency that it has withdrawn from \u2014 \u201cmanipulated, obsolete and interfering\u201d and accused \u201cneo-colonialist powers\u201d of weaponizing human rights for \u201cpolitical aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n Since mass protests in 2018<\/a>, which led to a bloody government crackdown that killed hundreds<\/a>, Ortega and his wife have held on to power.<\/p>\n Ortega declared himself the winner of the 2021 election \u2014 a vote widely viewed as illegitimate by the international community \u2014 after jailing all the candidates who could have possibly beaten him. The United States does not recognize Ortega\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n Nicaragua\u2019s government has imprisoned or exiled adversaries, religious leaders, journalists and more, stripping hundreds of their citizenship, homes and possessions. Since 2018, it has shuttered more than 5,000 organizations<\/a>, largely religious, and forced thousands to flee the country.<\/p>\n The government often accuses critics and organizations it targets of working for the U.S. and its enemies to undermine its power.<\/p>\n Reed Brody, a member of the U.N. expert group, said Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista Party has \u201ctotal control\u201d over the police, courts and prisons, and under the constitution adopted last year, the legislature and judiciary are no longer independent but controlled by the co-presidents.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are no opposition parties left, no independent press inside the country,” no critical nongovernmental organizations, said Brody, a Hungarian American human rights lawyer and prosecutor. \u201cThere is simply no space left for anyone to disagree.\u201d<\/p>\n