U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions on more than 100 Nicaraguan officials associated with the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship following the death of political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday the Trump administration took decisive steps to impose additional visa restrictions on more than 100 dictatorship officials and their family members,\u201d Rubio said in a June 8 statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWith this new set of restrictions, the U.S. government has now taken steps to impose visa restrictions on over 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their family members for their complicit role in Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega\u2019s dictatorship,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n Since 2007, Ortega and Murillo, his wife and co-president, have established an authoritarian regime in the country, repressing opposition through arrests, exile, and violence, suppressing civil rights, canceling elections, and persecuting the Church. <\/p>\n The move comes in response to the dictatorship\u2019s “responsibility for the horrific death of political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera,\u201d according to the statement. <\/p>\n Rivera, an Indigenous leader and political prisoner, died at 73<\/a> after being held incommunicado by the Murillo-Ortega regime for more than 970 days.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the enormous and intense medical efforts undertaken to restore the health of our Brother Brooklyn, whose physical and neurological deterioration was the result of a bacterial infection triggered by the COVID-19 virus, we regret to confirm that unfortunately he has departed this plane of existence,\u201d asserted a communiqu\u00e9<\/a> dated May 31 from Nicaragua\u2019s Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n Rubio alleged the direct involvement of U.S.-sanctioned Lumberto Ignacio Campbell Hooker<\/a>, a loyal member of the oppressive regime, in denying medical care to Rivera and with preventing Rivera\u2019s family from burying his remains.<\/p>\n The visa restrictions place increased pressure on the dictatorship, which has carried out systematic persecution of the Catholic Church<\/a> in Nicaragua for years.<\/p>\n Religious persecution at the hands of the dictatorship has included<\/a> restrictions on the sacraments and the celebration of the Mass; heightened surveillance; forced disappearances and detentions; exile for bishops<\/a>, priests, and<\/a>\u00a0religious<\/a>; and<\/a>\u00a0the<\/a>\u00a0forced closure of Catholic institutions.<\/a> The regime has also banned the ordination<\/a> of priests and deacons in dioceses with exiled bishops.<\/p>\n In a social media post, Rubio further described the Murillo-Ortega regime as \u201can enemy of humanity,\u201d noting that \u201cthe Trump administration will not ignore their crimes and brutality.\u201d<\/p>\n