Nicaragua Strips Hundreds of Lawyers of Licenses in Crackdown

Nicaragua's government has removed the licenses of hundreds, possibly thousands, of lawyers from the Supreme Court of Justice's registry in what a United Nations expert called a "purge of the legal profession" aimed at eroding democratic checks and balances Source: AP News, Al Jazeera.

What happened

Lawyers discovered their credentials were wiped from the official database without explanation or notification. Those affected include dissidents, exiles, and even government sympathizers, according to exiled lawyer Juan Diego Barberena and U.N. expert Reed Brody Source: AP News. Brody described the move as the latest in a pattern: "First, they closed the NGOs, the universities, the independent media ... and now it seems the legal profession" Source: Al Jazeera.

Broader crackdown

Since the 2018 protests, the Ortega-Murillo government has imprisoned opponents, shut down over 5,000 NGOs, stripped citizenship from hundreds, and forced thousands into exile. The revocation of law licenses mirrors earlier erasures of birth certificates and other documents from official records Source: AP News. Barberena, whose license was removed, stated: "This is a means of exercising totalitarian control over the legal profession" Source: Al Jazeera.

• The government did not respond to requests for comment Source: AP News.
• The full scope remains unclear, but Brody estimates "at least hundreds, if not thousands" of lawyers are affected .