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More than 200 imprisoned opponents were released this Thursday in Nicaragua by the government of Daniel Ortega and traveled to the United States, relatives and exiled opponents reported.
“222 political prisoners come to the city of Washington, they were released,” said Arturo McFields, former Ortega ambassador to the OAS, dismissed after describing his country as a dictatorship and now residing in the United States in a video on social networks.
Javier Álvarez, a Nicaraguan exiled in Costa Rica, confirmed to AFP that among those released are his wife and daughter, who also have French nationality.
A diplomatic source in Managua confirmed to AFP the release of the prisoners, but the Ortega government has not given an official version for the moment.
More than 200 opponents were sent to prison in Nicaragua in the context of the repression that followed the protests that broke out in 2018 against Ortega, in power since 2007.
Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez, who was Ortega’s vice president in his first term (1985-1990), and is currently in exile in Spain, expressed his satisfaction at the release of the prisoners.
“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 are going into exile, but they are going to freedom,” Ramírez tweeted.
