{"id":262909,"date":"2026-06-11T07:21:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T07:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262909\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T07:21:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T07:21:53","slug":"us-restricts-visas-for-nicaraguan-officials-after-brooklyn-riveras-death-the-tico-times-costa-rica-news-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262909\/","title":{"rendered":"US Restricts Visas for Nicaraguan Officials After Brooklyn Rivera\u2019s Death : The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The US State Department announced Monday that it will restrict visa access for over 100 Nicaraguan officials and their family members following the death of a detained Indigenous leader. Brooklyn Rivera, a renowned 73-year-old head of the Miskito people and former member of congress, was arrested in September 2023 by the left-wing, authoritarian government of President Daniel Ortega. It never stated publicly what the charges were.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ticotimes.net\/2026\/05\/31\/nicaragua-indigenous-leader-brooklyn-rivera-dies-in-state-custody\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Rivera\u2019s death<\/a> was announced May 31 by the Nicaraguan health ministry, which said his health failed because of a bacterial infection caused by the Covid-19 virus. The United States had called for Rivera\u2019s release after the government published photos of the visibly emaciated detainee hooked up to a ventilator.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe United States will not ignore the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship\u2019s responsibility for the horrific death of political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera,\u201d Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.\u00a0Murillo refers to Ortega\u2019s wife and co-president, <a href=\"https:\/\/ticotimes.net\/2024\/11\/23\/rosario-murillo-the-iron-fist-behind-nicaraguas-daniel-ortega\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Rosario Murillo<\/a>. Considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, Rivera was barred from seeing his family and denied the right to a defense during his detention. He died May 30 and was buried the next day with no family present.<\/p>\n<p>Tininiska Rivera, his daughter, said last week that the shocking images released by the government proved \u201cthat they don\u2019t care how they\u2019re perceived abroad, but rather about demonstrating their strength inside Nicaragua.\u201d She said from exile in Costa Rica.<\/p>\n<p>Although the government never said publicly why it arrested Rivera, according to press reports in November 2024 it told the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that his\u00a0congressional immunity had been lifted to investigate him for serious crimes including treason.<\/p>\n<p>On June 2, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an investigation. Rubio\u2019s statement said that with the new punishment the United States has now imposed visa restrictions on more than 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their family members \u201cfor their complicit role in Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega\u2019s dictatorship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It did not say who the new targets of US restrictions are. A firebrand Marxist in his youth and leader of a revolution against a US-backed autocrat, 80-year-old Ortega has been in power since 2007 following elections questioned by the international community. He is widely accused of acting harshly to crush dissent and remain in power in the poor Central American country.<\/p>\n<p>Managua is under US and EU sanctions, while thousands of Nicaraguans have fled into exile as the government jailed hundreds of opponents, real and perceived. Some Nicaraguans have been stripped of their citizenship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US State Department announced Monday that it will restrict visa access for over 100 Nicaraguan officials and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-262909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}