“They murdered my father,” denounces Tininiska Rivera Castellón, daughter of the indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera Bryan. The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo arbitrarily imprisoned him, disappeared him for almost three years, completely isolating him from his family, and presented him until he was about to die. “They murdered him for three years,” he remarks.
Even after death “my father is still kidnapped,” warns Tininiska Rivera. The dictatorship refused to hand over the body and “no one from the family” was able to participate in the express funeral they organized. “They didn’t even give us that right, the right to say goodbye to him,” Rivera emphasizes in an interview with CONFIDENTIAL and This week.
In the interview, Rivera emphasizes that the wound opened with the death of his father in the custody of the regime, on May 30, 2026, widened a day later with the arrest of six of his relatives who claimed the body. “We don’t know where they are, we don’t know what has happened to them in these last hours since their arrest on May 31. I simply know that the Police took them,” he said.
He claims that his family “had the right to be at the funeral and accompany my father in his final goodbye” and “not officials of a Government in whose hands he died.” He warns that he will continue to “demand his release” so that his remains rest in Sandy Bay, as was the will of the indigenous leader.
What was it like for you and your family to see the images of your father hospitalized, dying, after 971 days in forced disappearance?
A lot of impression because I I didn’t expect a photo like that of my dad. I was hoping that he could have his freedom and be able to see him in person and not in those photos. Seeing them made me uncomfortable, it made me sad, it gave me a lot of anxiety, it gave me very mixed feelings because I longed to see a photo, a video, anything of my dad. But to see him in that situation, bedridden, when they took him away alive, totally lucid and walking, he left his own house and—after almost three years—to see him again in a bed in that whole situation, with all those devices. There were many feelings when looking at those photos.
You have rejected the regime’s communications about your father’s health and death. What really happened to Brooklyn while he was in police custody for almost three years?
In the first communications, they referred to the very active life that my father led. If he led a very active life, it means that he was a person who exercised, a person who ate well, a person who had discipline when eating, a person who took his medical treatments. So they couldn’t claim that. Later, when I started to contradict, the communications They started saying that it was because of the covid. My dad got covid in 2020, but that was overcome and he had a normal life.
My father’s medical situation was not due to Covid, because days before his arrest, he and I had a very long conversation. We talked about his entire situation and he was fine, he walked well, he ate well, we talked for almost two hours and it seemed to me that everything with him was fine. They cannot claim after three years—we do not know what condition he was in, where he was kept, there was no visit, we did not have parcels as a family and all his fundamental rights were violated—that he already had a previous health situation. I flatly deny it.
“The family never saw him”
The regime has claimed that relatives from Brooklyn accompanied him when he was hospitalized, but never showed a video or photograph to prove it. We do not know the version of other relatives. What exactly happened when your dad was hospitalized?
I always demanded that they give proof of what they were saying. They showed evidence that Nancy (Henríquez) had visitors, but Nancy is on a house-to-jail regime. I don’t know why they went to the trouble of taking Nancy from where they had her to take her to see my dad, when my dad had family. Today there are six relatives in prison, close friends, the woman who always assisted my father and my nephew, my cousin, my aunt. They cannot claim that there were no relatives. The relatives we have searched for three yearsbut the Government has denied us a visit. My family, on my grandfather’s side, have tried to look for him. My family, on my grandmother’s side, have tried to look for him and have denied us all visits. We have requested with letters, we have gone in person, and they have always denied us visits. They hadn’t even told us which prison he was in. So how would we know where to look for it? We searched and, when the media reported that he was sick in a hospital, we tried to go to the hospitals to look for information. What they told us is that there was no person with that name, that there was no patient with that name. So, we have been denied seeing my dad in every possible way.
Which family members was the regime referring to when it says they visited him in the hospital? Could anyone see it? When?
I know that on the last day they took Nancy to one of my brothers, but they also denied my aunt a visit. You know that going from our communities or going from the Caribbean coast to Managua involves expense, time, and my aunt arrived on the 30th (May 2026) to try to see my father. She was denied a visit. They took my aunt’s ID and told her that perhaps they would take it into account for future visits, but that was not the case. When they made the public statement they put my aunt’s name, as if my aunt had visited my father, when it was a lie. At the time of my father’s death no one, no one, was accompanying him. He was alone.
Silence and kidnapping as a response
What happened after your dad died? Did you have any response to your request to be allowed into Nicaragua to bury him in Sandy Bay?
No. There was total silence about my request. There I understood that they did not accept my entry to Nicaragua to say goodbye. I was satisfied that they had given my father’s body to my family and that they had given him a Christian burial as he deserved, as the people of the Caribbean coast were asking to say goodbye to him. They didn’t even give us that right, to say goodbye to him. It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t there, with the pain of my soul, but I would prefer that they had given the body to my family so that my family could do the mass and funeral for my father, and not like they did it now.
Why was it important to you that your father be buried in his community of origin?
When I was 13, my father’s mother, my paternal grandmother, died. So, when I was 15, I went—for the first time—to the community where my father was born. He and I had a talk over my grandmother’s grave and he made me swear, at 15 years old, that the day he died we would bury him next to his mother. So, I have a commitment to my father that he rest in peace next to his mother. And my father’s will was not respected, my family’s will was not respected, and the commitment that I had with my father was not respected either. I made the request because I knew what my father wanted for him in life, for his burial.
Did the relatives who arrived in Managua when your father was in the hospital manage to claim the body once he died to bury it? Did they tell you something?
They claimed the body, they asked for the body to be transferred to Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas. Have a mass in Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas, and then move the body to Sandy Bay Tara, Lidaukra, which is where my father was born and where my grandmother rests.
Did they get a response?
They denied him and told him that the body was not going to be given to my family. That was the annoyance and the complaint, and for that reason they are imprisoned today, and we do not know the place or whereabouts where they are currently.
“They didn’t allow us to cry for my dad.”
Brooklyn was buried on May 31 in a funeral led by Sandinista Front deputies and Lumberto Campbell. Who made the decisions about your father’s funeral?
Obviously they didn’t consult my family. My family arrived from Puerto Cabezas, finding out through the media or social networks of my father’s death. We were not notified. My family traveled from Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas, to Managua to claim the body. We, obviously, know that if someone dies, the body must be given to the family. Why should a Government preserve a body that is not its relative? No, no, I do not understand the Government’s attitude, why retain a body, kidnap a body, and on top of that lead a mass in which no family member participated? No one from my family was at the funeral either.. I have no explanation for the Government’s actions towards everything they did with my father.
I still can’t understand why they did this, why take the body of a man who deserved to have a rest and deserved that his family, friends, people who knew him, that the population of Bilwi would accompany him, that the communities would accompany him until he said his last goodbye and mourned him. For us (the indigenous community) it is very important to mourn our dead, to accompany them, because when someone dies in any community, that entire community is paralyzed and they support the grieving family and they suffer with the grieving family and they support the grieving family because they know the suffering they have in those moments. So, they did not allow us to cry for my father and for me it is a lack of respect towards our culture (Miskito) and even our way of burying our dead.
How has the kidnapping of your father’s body impacted your family and also the Miskito community?
My family is very sad, they are also very scared about what may happen. They are afraid and, well, they have already kidnapped six people for the simple fact of asking for my father’s body. So my family is very, very scared. We did not imagine that simply for asking for the body they were going to take six people who were in pain to jail. Not only do we (their children) suffer, my family is also suffering, because we are not inside Nicaragua and they went on behalf of us, their children, to ask for my father’s body.
What has been learned about these relatives who were imprisoned for claiming your father’s body?
We are waiting for release. We have not been notified at all about what is happening with our relatives. We do not know where they are, we do not know what has happened to them in these last hours since their arrest on the 31st (May 2026). I simply know that the Police took them, but we don’t have the direction, we don’t know where they went and what is happening with them.
What is it like for the Miskito community to not be able to bury or give a dignified funeral to its leader as he had wished in life?
There is discontent among the population. They did not expect this action from the Government after making my father suffer, torture, and denigrate. And for me it is also degrading to see those photos in a hospital, why didn’t they show us a photo of when he was well but instead waited until the last moment? I see that photo and tears come to my eyes. I haven’t been able to see that photo after the first time I saw it because it makes me very sad. That’s not my father, the man that I know, that the last time we spoke to, that’s not him. They destroyed it, not only mentally, they destroyed it physically.
What actions will the family take after all this has happened?
We are still thinking about what actions to take. We are going to wait for the nine days to end, the novena, and with a cooler head think from now on what actions should be taken… Demand the freedom of my six relatives who are currently imprisoned. I think they haven’t done anything. Any family would have asked for the body. My family had the right to be at the funeral and accompany my father in his final goodbye. My family had the right to participate in the mass, they had the right to lead the mass as he wanted, as he had requested, and not see officials of a Government in whose hands my father died. My father was murdered, that’s the truth. After this whole situation, what they did with my father was murder him for three years. We do not know what type of torture my father must have suffered to reach that state and die.
