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Authorities in Nicaragua have arrested at least 60 people for reportedly celebrating or expressing support for the capture of Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, a human rights watchdog group and local media outlets said Friday.<\/p>\n
Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega and his wife, vice president Rosario Murillo, are staunch allies of Maduro, who was captured by US military personnel in Caracas last Saturday and taken to New York to face trial<\/a> on drug and weapons charges.<\/p>\n Since the arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, \u201cat least 60 arbitrary arrests\u201d have occurred over alleged support for the operation, the NGO Blue and White Monitoring, which compiles reports of human rights violations in Nicaragua<\/a>, said in a post on X.<\/p>\n The group said 49 people remained in detention Friday \u201cwithout information about their legal status,\u201d while nine people have been released and three others were temporarily detained.<\/p>\n \u201cThis new wave of repression is carried out without a judicial order and is based solely on expressions of opinion: comments on social media, private celebrations, or not repeating official propaganda,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n According to Confidencial, a Nicaraguan newspaper published outside the country, the arrests took place under a \u201cstate of alert\u201d ordered by Murillo following Maduro\u2019s capture \u2013 including surveillance in neighbourhoods and on social media.<\/p>\n La Prensa, another local newspaper, said the arrests occurred due to \u201cposts in favor\u201d of the US operation.<\/p>\n