WASHINGTON.- The United States regretted that a year after the mass expulsion from Nicaragua of more than 200 opponents, Daniel Ortega’s regime continues to try to “silence the voices of the Nicaraguan people,” which is why it called for respect for the civil and political rights of “everyone.” the citizens.
On February 9, 2023, 222 “political prisoners” arrived in the United States from Nicaragua, the result of a mass expulsion which meant that these people were declared traitors to the country and were left stateless, without nationality.
The spokesperson for the North American State Department, Matthew Miller, regretted that, a year later, “Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo continue to unjustly detain or force into exile those who want to exercise their Human Rights and fundamental freedoms in Nicaragua.”
In this last year, Joe Biden’s Administration applied new sanctions against lower-ranking Nicaraguan officials, including people linked to the process that led to the exile of 222 people. Total, The Ortega regime has expelled more than 300 prisonersamong them a group of 18 religious exiled in January and which included Bishop Rolando Álvarez.
Álvarez, sentenced to 26 years in prison for conspiracy and other crimes, is one of the most critical religious figures of the Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime.
The list of those expelled from Nicaragua includes the bishop of Siuna (northeast), Monsignor Isidoro Mora and several priests who were authorities in the Archdiocese of Managua, such as the vicars Silvio Fonseca, Miguel Mántica and Carlos Avilés.
In early January, the Nicaraguan Parliament, controlled by the ruling Sandinista Front, ratified a reform to the Political Constitution that allows the stripping of nationality from any Nicaraguan who is sentenced for “treason against the country.”
With the amendment, approved in the second legislature as required by law, article 21 establishes that people “sentenced in accordance with the provisions of Law 1055” (known as the Sovereignty Law) will be considered “traitors to the country and will lose their Nicaraguan nationality.”
Nicaragua is experiencing a crisis that began after the social uprising of April 2018when protesters went out to protest against a social security reform and were violently repressed by police and paramilitaries, resulting in 355 deaths, more than 2,000 injuries and at least 100,000 exiles that year, according to human rights organizations.
Repression and the economic crisis have caused the exodus of thousands of Nicaraguans.
Source: With information from Europa Press / AP
