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The Nicaraguan government should take steps to ensure that human rights defenders are free to promote and protect women's rights without harassment or intimidation, Human Rights Watch said today.

nine women's rights advocates have been the subject of a criminal investigation into whether, among other things, they conspired to cover up the crime of rape in the case of a 9-year-old rape victim known as "Rosita," who obtained an abortion in Nicaragua in 2003.

"While authorities should seek to get to the bottom of any case of child abuse, it is crucial that criminal investigations not be misused as retaliation for legitimate efforts to promote fundamental rights

Share The International Press Institute (IPI) is deeply alarmed to hear that the editors of the Antiguan investigative news site Caribarena have left Antigua and Barbuda reportedly due to fear for their family's safety.

they and their children had been threatened and harassed and their home vandalised following the publication of articles alleging corruption among high-ranking Antiguan politicians and public figures.

Moreover, a series of alleged cyberattacks that began on July 19th have shut down Caribarena's website indefinitely.

A Nicaraguan government crackdown on free speech, opposition parties and foreign diplomats has been condemned as an attack on civil liberties to bolster one-party rule.

“any attempt to create conditions for the implementation of a single-party regime in which ideological diversity and political parties disappeared is harmful to the country”.

social programmes such as improved access to schools have helped maintain his popularity, but human rights groups have condemned the gradual concentration of power, and weakening of institutions.

Nicaragua is a multiparty constitutional republic, but in recent years political power has become concentrated in a single party, with an increasingly authoritarian executive branch exercising significant control over the legislative, judicial, and electoral branches. In 2011 the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) announced the re-election of President Daniel Ortega Saavedra of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in elections that international and domestic observers characterized as seriously flawed

he principal human rights abuses were restrictions on citizens’ right to vote; obstacles to freedom of speech and press, including government intimidation and harassment of journalists and independent media

reports the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, many during confrontations with illegal armed groups in the northern part of the country

The authorities in Venezuela charged a leading opposition politician on Wednesday with taking part in a plot to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro. The politician, María Corina Machado, was informed of the charge in a meeting with prosecutors but was not detained. The national prosecutor’s office said in a statement on its website that Ms. Machado was charged with conspiracy and that, if found guilty, she could be sentenced to eight to 16 years in prison.

Ms. Machado, who denies taking part in a plot, was a vocal supporter of widespread antigovernment protests this year. Another politician who supported the protests, Leopoldo López, was charged with promoting violence and has been imprisoned.

The State Department in Washington issued a statement saying, “We are deeply concerned by what appears to be the Venezuelan government’s continuing effort to intimidate its political opponents through abuse of the legal process.”