The Spanish government offered to naturalize 94 Nicaraguans declared “traitors to the homeland” on Friday, a week after making the same proposal to 222 political prisoners expelled to the United States and stripped of their citizenship by the Sandinista regime.
“The Government of Spain has extended to the last 94 Nicaraguan citizens whose nationality has been withdrawn, the offer of Spanish nationality,” the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported in a statement.
The document indicates that the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, communicated this decision to the writer and former vice president of Nicaragua, Sergio Ramírez, an important figure in the opposition to President Daniel Ortega.
Ramírez, who appears on the list of 94 Nicaraguans deprived of their nationality, has lived as a refugee in Madrid since 2021 and has dual Spanish and Nicaraguan nationality.
Also on the list are the writer Gioconda Belli, the Catholic bishop Silvio Báez, the former guerrilla commanders Luis Carrión and Mónica Baltodano and the human rights activist Vilma Núñez.
The Spanish ministry also indicated that it is determined to grant Spanish nationality “to any citizen of Nicaragua who in the future may be left stateless by the decisions of the government of Daniel Ortega.”
The UN Refugee Agency in a statement (UNHCR) criticized Nicaragua’s measures to strip dissidents of their nationality on Friday.
“The most recent legislative reforms that allow arbitrarily deprive a person of citizenship contravene the obligations that this country has under international and regional human rights law,” he said.
