More than 200 opponents were released this Thursday in Nicaragua by the government of Daniel Ortega after being deprived of their political rights, stripped of their nationality and expelled to the United States.
The news had been announced by relatives and exiled opponents. Among them are former Sandinista commander Dora María Téllez, former presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro and Juan Lorenzo Holmann, former general manager of the newspaper The Press.
Nicaraguan opposition leader Juan Sebastián Chamorro, a candidate for the 2021 presidential elections, is among those 222 prisoners released and transferred to the United States today Thursday.
“The immediate and already effective deportation of 222 people is ordered. Said people have already been deported from the country, for which the respective official letters have been issued,” magistrate Octavio Rothschuh, president of Chamber One of the Managua Court of Appeals, told Nicaraguan official media.
The judge added that all were deprived in perpetuity of their political rights. “Traitors to the homeland lose the quality of Nicaraguan national,” according to Law 1145 approved by Parliament, controlled by supporters of President Daniel Ortega, who amended Article 21 of the Constitution. The rule requires a second legislative approval in the second half of this year, which is taken for granted.
“The deportees were declared traitors to the homeland and punished for different serious crimes and permanently disqualified from exercising public office. […]as well as to exercise positions of popular election, leaving their citizen rights suspended in perpetuity, “said the judge.
Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez, Ortega’s former vice president during his first term (1985-1990) and currently in exile in Spain, expressed his satisfaction with the measure.
“Today is a great day for the fight for the freedom of Nicaragua as so many unjustly convicted or prosecuted prisoners are released from prisons, prisons in which they should never have been. They go into exile, but they go to freedom,” Ramírez tweeted.
Relatives and friends of the released opponents gathered at Dulles International Airport, DC, to wait for them.
The head of US diplomacy Antony Blinken praised the release, saying it could open the way for more dialogue with Ortega.
“The release of these individuals, one of whom is a U.S. citizen, by the Nicaraguan government marks a constructive step to address human rights abuses in the country, and opens the door for more dialogue between the United States and Nicaragua on issues of concern,” Blinken said in a statement.
The United States facilitated the transport of opponents. This is a “positive and welcome” decision, said a State Department spokesman, who assured that those involved “left the country voluntarily” and will be able to reside in the United States for two years.
