(Reuters) -The U.S. State Department cited credible reports of killings, arrests and torture in Nicaragua, as well as harsh and life-threatening conditions in the country’s prisons, in an annual human rights report released on Monday.
President Daniel Ortega’s administration has been increasingly isolated internationally since his government began cracking down heavily on dissent following street protests that erupted in 2018. Ortega has called the protests an attempted coup against his government.
The State Department’s 2022 human rights report pointed to “numerous reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings.”
Ortega’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The report also described Nicaraguan prison conditions as potentially “life threatening,” citing overcrowding, poor sanitation and medical care, and violence among prisoners.
It also criticized the apparent failure of Ortega officials to investigate crimes allegedly committed by police and other security forces related to the anti-government protests, which left at least 355 dead.
Last month, 200 political prisoners were released by Nicaragua and sent to the United States. Bishop Rolando Alvarez, a vocal Ortega critic, refused to leave the country and was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison on charges that included treason, undermining national integrity, and spreading false news.
Pope Francis recently compared the Nicaraguan government to a dictatorship, prompting Ortega to “suspend” diplomatic relations with the Vatican.
(Writing by Valentine Hilaire; Editing by David Alire Garcia, Matthew Lewis and Rosalba O’Brien)