In the middle of the night, political leaders, priests, students and activists languishing inside Nicaragua’s most notorious prisons were awoken, given the clothes they had been arrested in and told to dress. Hours later, 222 of them, widely considered political prisoners, landed at a Washington-area airport, deported from their own country.
The United States government said the massive release was both a “unilateral decision” by the government of President Daniel Ortega and the result of concerted diplomatic efforts.“And whether this is a token of their demonstration that they’re ready to begin to change the human rights policies or not remains to be seen,” Biden said in an interview with Telemundo Noticias. “But the fact that they were released, we’re happy to receive them and I’m glad they’re out.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Nicaragua had identified 224 prisoners to be sent on the plane, but two of them declined. They were not identified. “It was the Nicaraguan government that decided to offer the opportunity to these individuals to travel the United States,” Price said. “When I say this is a product of American engagement, as you know, we have long called for the release of individuals imprisoned in Nicaragua for exercising their fundamental freedoms as a first step towards the restoration of democracy and an improved human rights climate in Nicaragua.
They were loaded onto buses and driven through the capital. They passed the court and for a moment they thought they were being taken there, but when the buses continued they saw only two options: the notorious Modelo prison near the airport or they would be put on a plane and expelled from Nicaragua.
Octavio Rothschuh, a magistrate on the Managua Appeals court, said the deportation was carried out under an order issued Wednesday that declared the prisoners “traitors to the country.” He said they were deported for actions that undermined Nicaragua’s independence and sovereignty. Berta Valle, the wife of opposition leader Felix Maradiaga, also appeared with her husband in Virginia after the plane landed.
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