HRF and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) petition United Nations on behalf of Nicaraguan journalist Fabiola Tercero Castro

NEW YORK (Dec. 17, 2025) – Last month, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sent a joint submission to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) on behalf of prominent Nicaraguan journalist and activist Fabiola Tercero Castro.

On July 12, 2024, Tercero was forcibly disappeared after seven uniformed agents from the National Police of Nicaragua raided her home without a warrant. The agents seized her computer, cell phone, and personal and professional files. Her last verified communication before her disappearance was a series of emergency messages sent to her network during the raid, noting that she was not presented with a warrant or legal justification for either the raid or her detention.

Tercero was not seen or heard from for more than a year, and her home was reportedly abandoned during that time. There are no public charges against her, no indication that formal proceedings were initiated, and no record of her detention in the prisons typically used for political prisoners in the country. The Nicaraguan government did not acknowledge her disappearance. On Nov. 11, 2025, state media released images of Tercero at her home with her mother and provided an interview, presumably conducted under coercion, claiming that she had never disappeared and was at home during the period of time in question. Human rights organizations denounced the interview as an attempt to appease prominent voices who have advocated for her release. State media did not provide any independent means of verifying Tercero’s well-being.

Tercero is a well-known activist and journalist in Nicaragua. For years, she has promoted human rights, literacy, gender equality, and free expression. Her case is emblematic of a broader pattern of surveillance, repression, and enforced disappearances of journalists and human rights defenders under Daniel Ortega’s regime. In the weeks before her disappearance, the police subjected Tercero to extrajudicial measures of surveillance and control: she was required to report daily on her whereabouts and activities, and she received periodic police visits at her home.

“We are seeing a consistent pattern of extrajudicial control measures and systematic repression of Nicaraguan human rights defenders and journalists, designed to incite fear and crush all dissent in the country,” said HRF International Legal Associate Caitlin Triplett. “We must send a strong signal to the regime that its brutal and unlawful practices of detaining and forcibly disappearing individuals are not without consequences.”

“It is essential that the UN Working Group investigate what happened and continues to happen to Fabiola Tercero,” said Antoine Bernard, RSF’s director of advocacy and assistance. “The Ortega regime’s repression of the press has led to the disappearance of all independent journalism in the country and the imprisonment or exile of dozens of critical voices. Faced with this extremely serious situation and the total impossibility of obtaining information on the journalist’s fate, the international community must take action. For more than 15 months, RSF has been asking the question: where is Fabiola Tercero? The Nicaraguan government must answer this question as a matter of urgency.”

Ortega is serving his fourth consecutive presidential term since returning to power in 2007. In February 2025, he became co-president alongside his wife, Rosario Murillo. Their regime has restricted freedoms of expression and association, stripped nearly half of all civil society organizations of their legal status, and implemented oppressive laws such as the Cybercrime Law and Foreign Agents Law to criminalize dissent and silence independent media. The regime considers those who promote critical thinking, dissent, and independent journalism to be enemies of the state, targeting Tercero and others for their peaceful activism and journalism.

HRF and RSF urge the WGEID to call on the Nicaraguan regime to conduct an independent and impartial investigation into Tercero’s enforced disappearance and ensure an immediate end to the ongoing efforts to control, intimidate, and surveil her.

Supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.