Nicaraguan indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera has died after nearly three years in the custody of President Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian regime, the government confirmed Sunday.
According to Nicaragua’s Ministry of Health, the 73-year-old died from “physical and neurological deterioration” linked to a Covid-19 infection. The government took 15 hours to confirm the death and has refused to release Rivera’s body to his family, opposition media report.
Rivera founded the indigenous movement Yatama and fought for autonomy. In the 1980s, he led a militia against Ortega’s Sandinista revolution. He was arbitrarily detained upon returning home in September 2023. The regime only acknowledged his detention a year later, following international pressure.
The U.S. State Department called Rivera “unjustly imprisoned.” Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, condemned his treatment. Bianca Jagger, a Nicaraguan human rights activist, told the BBC the Ortega regime is responsible, calling it “a dictatorial regime.”
Rivera served four times in Nicaragua’s National Assembly and was a minister in the 1990s. Yatama, which later aligned with Ortega, was banned from elections shortly after his detention.