In Nicaragua the danger of suffering torture is “very high.” The prisons of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as El Chipote, and the National Penitentiary System, La Modelo, have become “torture centers” and impunity for these cruel and inhuman acts “is absolute and structural,” according to the annual index of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT).
The index—which analyzes the situation in 39 countries with information from civil society organizations—warns that the situation in Nicaragua It is comparable to that of Russia, Iran, Libya, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Belarus and Bahrain. Countries where “systematic violations” of the absolute prohibition of torture are recorded.
The situation in Nicaragua demonstrates “a serious and systematic pattern of torture that intensified after the repression of April 2018,” notes the OMCT Index. The classification evaluates, among other aspects, the legal framework of the countries, their mechanisms for preventing torture by security forces and in detention centers, or methods for accountability and care for victims.
In the prisons known as El Chipote and The Model “At least 40 methods of torture and ill-treatment have been documented, including sexual violence, electric shocks and prolonged isolation,” warns OMCT. At least 46 political prisoners remained in these detention centers until May 2026 and eight have died in custody since 2019.
Police brutality and institutional violence
The index warns of a “high risk” related to systematic “police brutality” and “paramilitary groups” that act with the consent of the authorities. In the “Chamuca” constitutional reform, the paramilitary groups were renamed “volunteer police”, thus consolidating “its structural impunity”, underlines the OMCT.
“In routine law enforcement operations, the Blue and White Monitoring recorded 208 arbitrary arrests in 2025, carried out without a court order; in many cases, families do not know the whereabouts of the detainees, which is equivalent to short or long-term forced disappearances,” the global index reads.
Practices documented during arrests include excessively tight handcuffs, stress positions, beatings, and threats.
The Legal Defense, Registry and Memory Unit Association for Nicaragua also documented 23 cases of torture specifically at the time of capture.
Tortures in El Chipote and La Modelo
For OMCT, the conditions of detention in Nicaragua constitute in themselves “a form of torture.” They point out that the prison system “operates with an occupancy of 177%” and, in 2025 alone, 143 complaints of torture perpetrated by prison staff were registered.
“In El Chipote, sensory torture techniques are systematically applied: total isolation, lights permanently on or off to disorient detainees, access to sunlight for only 10 to 15 minutes per week, prohibition of speaking, reading or writing, sealed cells without ventilation or bedding. Added to this are sleep deprivation, insufficient food, extreme temperatures, sexual violence and forced nudity during interrogations, and little or no access to medical care,” the index says.
They add that incommunicado detention is “common practice” for political prisoners, who can remain months without contact with their families or lawyers. Since 2018, eight political prisoners have died in custody, four of them in the last nine months, and there is no National Prevention Mechanism or independent oversight of detention centers.
“Absolute and structural” impunity
For OMCT, “impunity for torture in Nicaragua is absolute and structural.” They emphasize that in the country “not a single conviction has been recorded, not a single ex officio investigation by the Public Ministry, nor has any agent been suspended for complaints of torture.”
The world body recalled that the Nicaragua Never Again collective documented more than 229 cases of torture since 2018 and the Legal Defense, Registry and Memory Unit Association for Nicaragua registered 143 complaints in 2025 alone. But they warn that these figures are “minimum estimates”, since the majority of victims refrain from filing complaints for fear of reprisals.
“Impunity operates from the highest levels: President (Daniel) Ortega has stigmatized political prisoners, which indicates to the perpetrators that their actions will not be punished. The judicial branch, subordinate to the Executive, does not investigate officials who act under the orders of the regime,” the OMCT index states.
They highlight that the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua identified 54 officials in a chain of command responsible for crimes against humanity, but “none were investigated internally.”
The State against the victims
Victims of torture in Nicaragua “lack any form of reparation, recognition or state support,” emphasizes OMCT. Far from protecting them, “the State persecutes them” and those who file complaints face “surveillance, harassment or re-detention,” they emphasize.
The world body highlights the case of the 222 political prisoners expelled to the United States in 2023 and the 135 expelled to Guatemala in 2025, who were also stripped of their nationality and deprived of their property, pensions and other rights, “aggravating the damage instead of repairing it.”
They add that in many cases, this has brought with it consequences such as: statelessness, breaking of family and community ties, displacement and impoverishment, described by the victims as a form of civil death.
Lack of political commitment against torture
The OMCT assesses that in Nicaragua there is no “political commitment to the prohibition of torture”, despite the fact that the country has ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol.
They emphasize that the “Chamuca” constitutional reform, approved in February 2025, repealed the article that expressly prohibited torture and created the “volunteer police,” a euphemism for the paramilitary groups that participated in the 2018 repression.
“There is no specific prevention law or National Prevention Mechanism” within the framework of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture. Furthermore, the State’s rejection of international supervision is “systematic and hostile” and “none of the recommendations of the Convention against Torture have been implemented,” they point out.
