Ortega and Murillo Pull Nicaragua from UNESCO
Withdrawal from the fifth agency this year
Previously FAO, Human Rights Council, ILO and IOM. Unesco responds reaffirming its commitment to press freedom.
HAVANA TIMES – The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) became the fifth agency in 2025 from which Nicaragua, under the leadership of the country’s “co-presidents” Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, has withdrawn. The country remains mired in an ongoing sociopolitical and human rights crisis.
On February 4, Nicaragua announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and also ordered the “immediate” closure of its representation and offices in Managua. The move came after the agency listed Nicaragua among the countries suffering from the highest levels of hunger in the world.
Nicaragua also withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council on February 27, and in the same month announced its departure from other agencies such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
FAO and hunger in Nicaragua
In February, the Sandinista government, in power since 2007, withdrew from the FAO after the agency included Nicaragua among the countries with the most severe hunger levels globally.
“FAO’s attitude is unacceptable, inadmissible and disrespectful. Consequently, we communicate the withdrawal of Nicaragua from this Organization and demand the immediate closure of its Representation and Offices in Nicaragua”, wrote Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke in a letter rejecting the report The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024, which states that more than 1.3 million people in Nicaragua are experiencing hunger.
According to the FAO report, 19.6% of Nicaragua’s population suffers from hunger, and 15% (about 100,000) of children under five show signs of stunted growth due to poor nutrition.
In the letter, the Nicaraguan foreign minister did not provide any official data on hunger levels in the country.
The Human Rights Council
In the same month, three weeks apart, the Sandinista regime announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council after the release of a report by the Group of Experts on Human Rights on Nicaragua. The report recommended conditioning Nicaragua’s preferential access to US and European Union markets on human rights benchmarks and urged that the country be taken to the International Court of Justice for stripping at least 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality.
“Nicaragua communicates its sovereign and irrevocable decision to withdraw from the Human Rights Council and from all activities related to this Council and its satellite mechanisms,” announced Rosario Murillo, who was recently designated as co-president through a constitutional reform.
In its formal letter of withdrawal, Nicaragua accused the Group of Experts, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Council itself of having become “an echo chamber for those who attacked peace and stability and who are responsible for numerous murders, kidnappings, rapes, atrocities, and outrages against the Nicaraguan people, while also causing incalculable destruction and damage to the national economy.”
ILO and IOM
A day later, on February 28, the Sandinista government announced its withdrawal from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), accusing both of acting “politically, lending themselves to destabilizing and interventionist maneuvers” against Nicaragua and of failing to fulfill their original missions.
In addition to notifying what it called its “sovereign and irrevocable decision to withdraw from the organization,” Nicaragua also demanded the IOM “immediately close its representation and offices” in Managua.
These agencies have now been joined by Unesco, which was notified by the Nicaraguan government of its withdrawal in protest against the recent award to the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa of its World Press Freedom Prize.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which was accentuated after the controversial elections of November 2021, in which Ortega, 79, was reelected for a fifth term — fourth consecutive — with his main contenders in prison and whom he later expelled from the country, and deprived them of their nationality and political rights after accusing them of being “coup plotters” and “treason”.
Unesco’s exit
Nicaragua notified Unesco of its withdrawal from the organization in protest at the recent award to the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa of its World Press Freedom Prize, sources at the UN agency for Education, Science and Culture told EFE.
Through a letter sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government informed Unesco of its departure on May 3, although due to the time difference with Paris (where the organization’s headquarters are located), the Director General, Audrey Azoulay, was informed of the decision on the morning of May 4.
In the letter, to which EFE had access, the Nicaraguan Executive described as “unacceptable and inadmissible” the decision to award the prize to La Prensa, a newspaper founded on March 2, 1926, whose professionals have been persecuted since 2021 by the Sandinista regime.
“It is deeply shameful that Unesco appears as the promoter, and obviously an accomplice, of an action that offends and attempts against the deepest values of Nicaragua’s national identity and culture, lacking its objectivity and discrediting itself,” the Foreign Ministry said, in a tone similar to that used yesterday to publicly condemn the award.
“Therefore, the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua, on the basis of Article 2, paragraph 6 of the Constitution of Unesco, informs of its sovereign and firm decision to withdraw from the organization,” concludes the letter, signed by Minister Valdrack Jaentschke.
Unesco reaffirms commitment to press freedom
UNESCO reaffirmed that defending freedom of expression is part of its mandate and clarified that the winner of its annual award, granted jointly with the Guillermo Cano Foundation, is selected by an independent international jury made up of six professionals from various media outlets.
“I regret this decision, which will deprive the people of Nicaragua of the benefits of cooperation in the fields of education and culture. At the same time, UNESCO is wholly fulfilling its role by defending freedom of expression and press freedom around the world,” said the agency’s Director-General in a statement.
The UN agency explained that the Nicaraguan authorities’ complaint stems from the claim that, by awarding La Prensa, UNESCO is endorsing the newspaper’s “diabolical nature” and “treacherous anti-patriotic sentiment.” According to the Sandinista regime, La Prensa promotes “US military and political interventions in Nicaragua.”
But Unesco pointed out that, since 2021, La Prensa continues to “keep the Nicaraguan population informed through the Internet”, despite judicial persecution, arbitrary arrests and expulsion from the country of its leaders, as well as the confiscation of their assets.
It is this ongoing effort that the award—presented in partnership with the Guillermo Cano Foundation and announced this past Saturday on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day—seeks to recognize in 2025.
“The fate of this landmark newspaper, founded in 1926, is an example of the increasingly violent attacks on freedom of expression and press freedom in Nicaragua in recent years,” the UN agency stressed.
He also stressed that the NGO Reporters Without Borders ranked the country 172nd (out of 180) in its press freedom index and that Unesco itself published a report in 2024 warning about “the alarming increase” in allegations of financial misappropriation aimed at “intimidating and silencing media and journalists”.
The award commemorates Colombian journalist Guillermo Cano Isaza, who was murdered on December 17, 1986, in front of the offices of his newspaper, El Espectador, in Bogota. The award ceremony is scheduled for May 7, 2025, in Brussels.