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The Government of Pedro Sánchez offered this Friday Spanish nationality to the Nicaraguan “political prisoners” who were deported this Thursday by the Executive of President Daniel Ortega from the territory to the United States. The UN considered the release of the prisoners “positive”.
Madrid offered Spanish nationality to the 222 stateless political prisoners who were deported by Nicaragua this Thursday and transferred to the United States. The government of Daniel Ortega stripped them of their nationality “as traitors to the homeland.”
The decision was announced by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and the offer also concerns those who are still being held in Nicaraguan prisons accused of being traitors.
“The Government offers Spanish nationality to these 222 prisoners who have been released after the information that the procedure to declare them stateless has been initiated” by the Nicaraguan authorities, Albares said in a statement.
Former presidential candidate Juan Sebastián Chamorro reacted on behalf of those affected and thanked the decision: “I am sure that many of the political prisoners will see this as an option,” he said in a virtual press conference from Washington, in which he thanked to Spain for having worked intensely in recent years for the democratization of Nicaragua.
According to Chamorro, many prisoners would have accepted the decision, some even having relatives in the host country.
“There are a couple who have relatives in Spain and I am sure that it is an extremely important humanitarian action and I am extremely glad that the initiative has been taken that shows the importance of the international concert of countries working for political and human rights”, he claimed.
The 222 political prisoners arrived in the US capital on Friday. Washington gave them a humanitarian parole that will allow them to live and work in the United States for two years.
The UN welcomes Nicaragua’s decision
UN Secretary General António Guterres said he considered the release of the prisoners a “positive” step.
The organization had been calling for his release since 2018. He also recalled that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protects the rights of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association.
This Friday, more than 200 organizations requested in a letter to the President of the United States, Joe Biden, an immigration benefit for Nicaraguans fleeing “political repression” at the hands of the Ortega “regime.”
“The consolidation of the judicial, electoral and presidential power under the Ortega-Murillo regime, and the brutal repression of any perceived dissident makes any type of democratic governance impossible,” say the 272 organizations that signed the letter.
In total, 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners were released and deported to the United States on Friday, not including the two people who refused to travel to the United States and remain imprisoned in Nicaragua.
According to Ortega’s statements, the decision was made unilaterally on his part, but the United States had been asking for Nicaragua’s release for months.
Among those released were political and business leaders, journalists, representatives of civil society and students. Also listed are five former presidential hopefuls who tried to challenge Ortega in the 2021 elections.
Nicaragua experienced a wave of protests in 2018 that were violently repressed by the government, leading tens of thousands of people to leave the country.
with EFE
