Nicaragua tightens control of social media to censor dissent

The Nicaraguan regime of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, ordered their loyal Parliament on Wednesday to urgently reform the Cyber Crime Law, better known as the gag law. The cornerstone of the reform are tougher penalties for offenses and the provision that Nicaragua can prosecute “cyber crimes” committed outside the country. Since 2018, this law has been used to silence any criticism of the regime’s repressive drift.

The reform changes Article 1 of the Cyber Crime Law, which establishes prison terms for “those who promote or distribute false or misleading information that causes alarm, terror, or unease in the public.” While before, the law only addressed crimes committed “through information technology,” now it applies to “the use of social networks and cell phone applications.”

According to critics, this is a death blow to the last bastion of freedom of expression and press that remains in Nicaragua and is not controlled by Ortega and Murillo: social media and the independent media that shares content on these platforms.

The reform also extends the application of Article 2 of the Cyber Crime Law, so that anyone who “facilitates or favors the commission of crimes” can be prosecuted, irrespective of whether they are in Nicaragua. This is in line with the regime’s strategy to expand the crackdown on dissent beyond national borders — as evidenced by the recent reform to the Code of Criminal Procedure, approved at the end of August.

The reform to the Penal Code allows for the prosecution of Nicaraguans and foreigners who are outside the country, while establishing penalties ranging from life imprisonment to confiscation of assets for people who commit crimes such as money laundering, terrorism and financing terrorism, cyber crimes and any offense against public administration.

In the case of the amendment to the Cyber Crime Act, prison sentences have been increased to five years. And if a social media post also “incites discrimination, hatred and violence on racial, religious, political, economic and social grounds or endangers economic and social stability, public order, sovereign security or public health,” the sentence rises to 10 years in prison. Previously, the maximum sentence was five years. Combined, this is a 15-year sentence.

“What Ortega and Murillo are doing is transnationalizing repression, taking this to a point where persecution becomes global. What they are trying to do with this is to instrumentalize the mechanisms of Interpol or FATF [Financial Action Task Force], which Nicaragua belong to. Unfortunately, these groups are useful to [Ortega and Murillo], because they can place international arrest warrants on them,” says former opposition deputy Eliseo Núñez, who was stripped of his Nicaraguan nationality.

Condemned by a ‘like’

Journalists and opponents of all stripes have been charged under the Cyber Crime Law. The Ortega-Murillo regime assumes the power to determine which social media posts constitute “fake news.” Users are immediately arrested and quickly tried and sentenced. At trial, the Prosecutor’s Office has not only used the defendant’s own social media posts as evidence, but even the “likes” to third-party political posts, and their comments on the social media accounts of figures the government has targeted.

For example, TikToker Cristóbal Geovanny López Acevedo, a Sandanista known on social media as Tropi Gamer, was convicted for defending Miss Universe Sheynnis Palacios from the official propaganda, which lashed out at the model after her win was seen as a victory for the opposition. Philosopher and professor Freddy Quezado was also convicted after liking a post on X that celebrated the mobilizing power of the newly crowned Miss Nicaragua. Both political prisoners shared their stories last week from Guatemala City, where they were exiled along with 133 other people. The list of political prisoners also includes farm workers, who were prosecuted for cyber crimes despite not owning a cell phone or having a social media account.

More power for the police and control of remittances

In recent weeks, the Ortega-Murillo regime — via its lawmakers in Parliament — has implemented multiple reforms to other laws to sharpen the crackdown measures. In addition to the Cyber Crime Law and the Penal Code reform, the regime has given the National Police — the Sandinista’s main repressive body — the authority to raid properties, seize electronic and computer equipment, and demand telephone companies hand over the digital information (calls, text and voice messages, and geolocation) of people under investigation — without needing a court order.

In other words, the police have free reign to “carry out searches, raids, inspections and seizures as necessary.” And they can extract and access information from electronic and computer systems. These actions — which were already taking place – can be carried out without a court order in “urgent cases.” Police will have a period of three working days to “validate the act before the judicial authority.”

The Law Financial Analysis Unit (Law 976), was also amended, granting new functions to the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF) to monitor and report “suspicious” transactions made by natural and legal persons, as well as Virtual Asset Service Providers. This has caused great alarm because it means the institution can monitor family remittances, the main source of income for Nicaraguan families.

With respect to electronic transfers, remittance services and virtual assets, the reform dictates that “supervisors must establish regulations for obtaining information on beneficiary originators, whether these are natural or legal persons.” The law establishes that subjects must identify the final beneficiary of their clients and take reasonable measures to verify their identity, “so that they are sure that they know who the final beneficiary is.”

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