Seizure of university a blow to science – Researchers

Researchers in Nicaragua say the government’s takeover of a prominent private university has dealt another serious blow to academic freedom and scientific autonomy in the country, writes Kata Karáth for Science.

Last week, President Daniel Ortega’s administration confiscated the assets of the Central American University (UCA) in Managua and closed its campuses, alleging the Jesuit-run institution had become a “hub of terrorism” and that its leaders were “traitors to the country.” It then reopened the campus with new leadership and a new name: the Casimiro Sotelo Montenegro National University, in honour of a Sandinista student leader assassinated in 1967.

“The [university] was the last bastion of quality higher education, where research institutes were creating knowledge and doing science,” says one member of its faculty, who requested anonymity because of fears of retaliation. “I believe that independent scientific investigations are over in Nicaragua.”
Full report on the Science site