The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has welcomed the release of 222 persons deprived of their liberty for political reasons in Nicaragua and rejected the deportation and «arbitrary deprivation» of nationality by the State of these prisoners.
The IACHR recognized in a statement that the release «puts an end to years of arbitrary confinement, under deplorable conditions of detention, for being considered opponents of the government, legitimately exercising the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly and association, as well as the defense of human rights».
The organization has stated that it repudiates, however, that these releases have been accompanied by the arbitrary deprivation of Nicaraguan nationality, which would make most of the 222 people released stateless. The commission also highlighted the multiple human rights violations to which these people were subjected over several years.
«The American Convention enshrines the right to nationality and expressly establishes a guarantee against its arbitrary deprivation; and the Inter-American Principles on the Rights of Migrant Persons establish that every person has a non-derogable right to have a nationality and not to be stateless, to keep his nationality, and cannot be denied, lost or arbitrarily deprived of it,» the IACHR recalled in its letter.
In this sense, the organization has recognized that nationality constitutes «a non-derogable right of all persons», and the arbitrary deprivation of it, especially as a penalty or sanction for political reasons, is «contrary to international human rights law».
Therefore, the IACHR has urged Nicaragua to guarantee full access and enjoyment of the right to nationality, as well as to adopt measures to prevent and eradicate statelessness, for which it has asked the State to repeal recent legislative amendments contrary to international and Inter-American standards.
It has also called on the States of the region to adopt or strengthen mechanisms of regional cooperation and shared responsibility to attend to and recognize stateless persons and, consequently, to grant them the special protection they require.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
