GUATEMALA CITY — The U.S. authorities introduced Thursday that it secured the discharge of 135 Nicaraguan political prisoners, who’ve arrived in Guatemala the place they are going to apply for entry to the US or different international locations.
Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan stated in an announcement that they had been launched on humanitarian grounds.
“Nobody must be put in jail for peacefully exercising their basic rights of free expression, affiliation, and training their faith,” Sullivan stated.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Eric Jacobstein, talking with reporters, stated that the Nicaraguan authorities acquired nothing in alternate for the prisoners’ launch and the negotiation signaled no change in U.S. coverage towards the federal government of President Daniel Ortega.
“Although the strain itself has been constant, the planning and execution of this launch was speedy, and we’ve labored rapidly to facilitate the journey of those people and actually guarantee their security at each step of the journey,” Jacobstein stated, including that Nicaragua continues to “unjustly” detain individuals.
Requested if there have been some prisoners Nicaragua was prepared to launch, however who refused to depart, he declined to remark.
Jacobstein, who greeted the Nicaraguans in Guatemala, stated “these are people, a few of whom have been victims of torture … who’ve had a particularly tough time, we did discover them typically in superb well being and spirits.”
One factor that struck the U.S. diplomat about a few of his conversations with the prisoners was the “true pettiness and cruelty” of Ortega’s authorities for imprisoning individuals for no justifiable cause.
Francisco Arteaga, a launched prisoner who spoke from the window of the yellow bus carrying him and others from the air discipline, was requested why he had been arrested. “For spreading on social media the federal government’s actions in opposition to the Catholic church,” he stated.
Among the many Nicaraguans launched had been 13 members of a Texas-based non secular charity, Catholic laypeople, college students and others.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo agreed to host the Nicaraguans whereas they apply for entry to the U.S.
The Nicaraguans rolled out of a Guatemalan air base within the capital on buses Thursday morning, with some waving from the home windows.
Nicaragua’s authorities didn’t instantly verify the announcement on the prisoners’ launch.
Nicaraguan human rights advocate Haydeé Castillo stated the discharge of the prisoners was a “triumph for the Nicaraguan individuals’s resistance.” She famous that the prisoners weren’t actually freed as a result of their launch comes with compelled displacement from their nation.
“No person must be held prisoner for pondering otherwise,” Castillo stated.
She stated advocates had been reviewing lists to see what number of such prisoners stay in custody.
Ivannia Alvarez, an exiled Nicaraguan and member of the Recognition Mechanism for Political Prisoners, stated that her most up-to-date depend had been 151 jailed, suggesting that a few of them are nonetheless detained.
The Texas-based non secular group Mountain Gateway confirmed the discharge of 13 of its individuals after 9 months in jail.
“That is the day we’ve got prayed for,” pastor Jon Britton Hancock, Mountain Gateway’s founder, stated in an announcement.
Environmentalist Amaru Ruiz stated on social platforms that amongst these launched had been eight Indigenous forest rangers.
“The USA once more calls on the federal government of Nicaragua to right away stop the arbitrary arrest and detention of its residents for merely exercising their basic freedoms,” Sullivan stated.
The U.S. authorities referred to them as political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.
The announcement got here simply two days after Nicaragua’s Nationwide Meeting authorized adjustments to the felony code permitting the federal government to strive Nicaraguans and foreigners in absentia.
Opponents and organizations which have fled or been compelled into exile in President Ortega’s yearslong marketing campaign to silence crucial voices may very well be fined, sentenced to prolonged jail phrases and see their property seized by the federal government underneath the authorized adjustments.
Final yr, the federal government exiled greater than 300 opposition figures, stripping them of their nationality. Way more Nicaraguans have fled into exile themselves to flee the repression that adopted huge 2018 protests that Ortega dubbed a failed coup with worldwide backing.
“These people safely and voluntarily arrived in Guatemala,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated in an announcement. “We thank President Bernardo Arévalo and his administration for his or her efforts and help in welcoming them.”
“Nicaraguan authorities unjustly detained these people for exercising their basic freedoms of expression, of affiliation and peaceable meeting, and of faith or perception,” Blinken stated.
The federal government has shuttered greater than 5,000 organizations since 2018, lots of them non secular in nature.
