Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has excused 222 political prisoners and despatched them to america. This choice comes as a part of a do business in brokered through america govt and the Group of American States, which objectives to foster a relaxed solution to the Nicaraguan disaster. The prisoners had been excused next spending months in prison on fees of terrorism and treason and are being despatched to the U.S. for resettlement. The Nicaraguan govt additionally agreed to reduce fees in opposition to a complete of 873 people.
A man holds a Nicaraguan flag in support of peace in Nicaragua.
Inti Ocon/AFP via Getty Images
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Inti Ocon/AFP via Getty Images
A man holds a Nicaraguan flag in support of peace in Nicaragua.
Inti Ocon/AFP via Getty Images
The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has freed 222 political prisoners and put them on a flight to Washington, DC, officials from both countries said Thursday.
At Washington’s Dulles International Airport, a group of about 20 relatives and friends of former prisoners waited holding Nicaraguan flags with a mixture of excitement and disbelief.
Ariana Gutierrez Pinto, daughter of Evelyn Pinto, said it proves you should never lose faith.
“Freedom will always come and justice will always come,” she said.
The released prisoners were put on an early morning flight and arrived in Washington around noon Thursday.
Speaking on Nicaraguan state television in the morning, a judge said the government had decided to “deport” the prisoners in order to “protect peace and national security”. He said they had been declared traitors and could never hold public office again.
The country’s National Assembly held a special session to pass a new law to strip these 222 prisoners of their Nicaraguan citizenship.
A US State Department spokesman said Nicaragua made the decision “unilaterally”, but that the US had “facilitated transportation” and that political prisoners would be admitted to the US for “reasons humanitarians”.
Arturo McFields, a Nicaraguan diplomat who publicly broke ranks with Ortega’s regime, said it was a “bittersweet moment”. (Not one of the released prisoners himself, McFields spoke by phone with NPR about the news.)
“Partly we’re happy, we’re celebrating, but on the other hand they’re not really free,” he said. “Political prisoners cannot return home, cannot go to have a political life, a civilian life, to study, to work, to express themselves freely. This does not exist in Nicaragua.”
Since anti-government protests erupted in Nicaragua in 2018, President Ortega has unleashed a violent crackdown. He consolidated his power, crushed popular protests, threw his political opponents into prison and hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans fled.
The prisoners’ lawyers and family members say they were held in horrific conditions. Some had spent many years in prison, others had been arrested ahead of the 2021 presidential elections in Nicaragua.
The government has published a list of the 222 prisoners who have been released. It was clergy, youth activists, journalists and members of the opposition, including Félix Maradiaga and Cristiana María Chamorro Barrios, both candidates who challenged Ortega in the elections.
One of them is a US citizen, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, without naming the released prisoners.
This reduce of prisoners is a amaze. A human rights workforce says Nicaragua held 245 political prisoners, maximum of whom have now been excused. Specifically, the Catholic bishop Rolando Álvarez, imprisoned for criticizing the regime, isn’t amongst the ones excused.
Sandinista chief Ortega, who first dominated Nicaragua within the Eighties next the rustic’s bloody civil struggle, returned to energy in 2007. His rule has change into increasingly more authoritarian with a crackdown on all protests, opposition figures imprisoned and significant voices within the media silenced or coerced. in exile.
The November 2021 election has been condemned as a sham through Washington, the Ecu Union and world human rights organizations. Ortega governs together with his spouse, Vice President Rosario Murillo, and a tight-knit workforce of depended on figures from the police, army and parliament.
NPR’s Eyder Peralta reported from Mexico Town; Tara Neill of NPR from Washington, D.C.
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