San José, Feb 9 (AFP/APP): More than 200 detained members of Nicaragua’s opposition were heading to the United States on Thursday after being freed by the government of President Daniel Ortega, which has been widely accused of authoritarianism.
The news was broken by relatives of the prisoners and exiled opposition figures, before authorities confirmed the releases.
“Two hundred and twenty-two political prisoners are coming to Washington, they were freed,” Nicaragua’s former ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) Arturo McFields said in a video shared on social media.
McFields, who now lives in the United States, stunningly quit his role last year during an OAS permanent council session as he denounced the Ortega “dictatorship.”
Octavio Rothschuh, president of an appeals court in Managua, said the prisoners had been “deported” and declared “traitors to the homeland.” They were also stripped of their political rights for life.
The court gave no details of the names of those released.
Javier Alvarez, a Nicaraguan living in exile in Costa Rica, told AFP that his wife and daughter, who also have French nationality, were among those liberated.
Hundreds of people were sent to prison in Nicaragua in the wake of anti-government protests in 2018 that were met with a brutal crackdown resulting in 355 deaths and more than 100,000 people fleeing into exile.
Dozens of opposition figures were arrested in 2021 — including seven presidential hopefuls — ahead of elections. They were accused of undermining “national integrity.”
Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramirez, who was Ortega’s vice president during his first mandate from 1985-90, welcomed the releases.
“Today is a great day for the fight for Nicaragua’s freedom,” Ramirez, who now lives in Spain, said on Twitter.
“They are heading into exile, but they are heading for freedom.”
– US welcomes releases –
The United States praised the move and said it would welcome the arrivals.
“The decision of the Nicaraguan Government is a positive and welcome one,” a State Department spokesperson said.
She said the US had “facilitated” the transport of the Nicaraguans to Washington but that the Nicaraguan government had “decided unilaterally” to free them.
The Nicaraguans will be allowed to stay in the United States for an initial period of two years.
One US citizen was among the freed prisoners, the State Department said.
A firebrand Marxist in his youth, Ortega was a former guerrilla in the Sandinista movement who initially took power in 1979 after the fall of the Somoza family dictatorship that was backed by Washington.
The US then backed armed resistance to Ortega and the Sandinista rulers.
Ortega was defeated in elections in 1990 but returned to power in 2007, and has since engaged in increasingly authoritarian practices, quashing presidential term limits and seizing control of all branches of the state.
The US State Department spokesperson said many of the released prisoners had spent years in detention “for exercising their fundamental freedoms, in awful conditions and with no access to due process.”
“We remain steadfast in encouraging additional steps by the government of Nicaragua to restore civil liberties and democracy for the Nicaraguan people.”
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