Nicaragua vows to free detainees amid US pressure
Nicaragua鈥檚 government has been carrying out an ongoing crackdown since mass social protests in 2018 that were violently repressed.
Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega waves after attending the swearing-in ceremony of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro for a third term at the National Assembly in Caracas, Jan. 10, 2025.
AP Photo/Matias Delacroix/File
Mexico City
Nicaragua鈥檚 Interior Ministry said Saturday the country would release dozens of prisoners, as the United States ramped up pressure on leftist President Daniel Ortega a week after it ousted former Venezuelan leader Nicol谩s Maduro.
On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua said Venezuela had taken an important step toward peace by releasing what it described as 鈥減olitical prisoners.鈥� But it lamented that in Nicaragua, 鈥渕ore than 60 people remain unjustly detained or disappeared, including pastors, religious workers, the sick, and the elderly.鈥�
On Saturday, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that 鈥渄ozens of people who were in the National Penitentiary System are returning to their homes and families.鈥�
It wasn鈥檛 immediately clear who was freed and under what conditions. Nicaragua鈥檚 government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The government has been carrying out an ongoing crackdown since mass social protests in 2018, that were violently repressed.
Nicaragua鈥檚 government has imprisoned adversaries, religious leaders, journalists, and more, then exiled them, stripping hundreds of their Nicaraguan citizenship and possessions. Since 2018, it has shuttered more than 5,000 organizations, largely religious, and forced thousands to flee the country. Nicaragua鈥檚 government often accused critics and opponents of plotting against the government.
In recent years, the government has released hundreds of imprisoned political opponents, critics, and activists. It stripped them of Nicaraguan citizenship and sent them to other countries like the U.S. and Guatemala. Observers have called it an effort to wash its hands of its opposition and offset international human rights criticism. Many of those Nicaraguans were forced into a situation of 鈥渟tatelessness.鈥�
Saturday on X, the U.S. State Department鈥檚 Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs again slammed Nicaragua鈥檚 government.
鈥淣icaraguans voted for a president in 2006, not for an illegitimate lifelong dynasty,鈥� it said. 鈥淩ewriting the Constitution and crushing dissent will not erase the Nicaraguans鈥� aspirations to live free from tyranny.鈥�
Danny Ram铆rez-Ay茅rdiz, executive-secretary of the Nicaraguan human rights organization CADILH, said he had mixed feelings about the releases announced Saturday.
鈥淥n the one hand, I鈥檓 glad. All political prisoners suffer some form of torture. But on the other hand, I know these people will continue to be harassed, surveilled, and monitored by the police, and so will their families.鈥�
Mr. Ram铆rez-Ay茅rdiz said the liberation of the prisoners is a response to pressure exerted by the United States. 鈥淭here is surely a great deal of fear within the regime that the U.S. might completely dismantle it,鈥� he said.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.