The White House in the United States reported this Thursday, September 5, that the government of the North American country “today secured the release of 135 political prisoners unjustly detained in Nicaragua, for humanitarian reasons.”
“Among the 135 Nicaraguan citizens released today are 13 members of the Texas-based Puerta de la Montaña organization, along with Catholic laypeople, students and others whom Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo consider a threat to their authoritarian regime.”
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On March 19, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua had sentenced 11 Christian leaders to between 12 and 15 years in prison; already pay 880 million dollars. In addition, they were prevented from having contact with their families and lawyers, after the success of Puerta de la Montaña in bringing together thousands of people praying in public spaces.
On that occasion, ADF International, an organization that defends religious freedom and that assumed the legal defense of the Christian leaders, denounced that the sentence against them was given for “false charges of money laundering.” In this process ADF had brought the case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
Those sentenced were a married couple, an evangelist and eight pastors linked to Puerta de la Montaña, which has been working in Nicaragua since 2015, with the permission of the regime.
In its statement this Thursday, the White House thanked “the leadership and generosity of the Government of Guatemala” and its president, Bernardo Arévalo, for “kindly agreeing” to receive the 135 Nicaraguans, who will then be able to “legally request to rebuild their lives.” in the United States and other countries, through President Biden’s Office of Safe Mobility initiative.”
The statement also states that “no one should be imprisoned for peacefully exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression, association, and practicing their religion.”
“The United States once again calls on the Government of Nicaragua to immediately cease arbitrary arrests and detentions of its citizens for only exercising their individual freedoms,” he concludes.
Through XArévalo pointed out that, with the reception of the 135 political prisoners, “our country has shown its firm democratic conviction, which flatly rejects the threats of authoritarian regression.” “Only in freedom, democracy, life and humanity flourish,” he added.
Martha Patricia Molinaresearcher and author of the report Nicaragua: A persecuted Church?which in its latest installment reports 870 attacks by the dictatorship against the Catholic Church in the country, pointed out that the release and departure of the 135 political prisoners “is an exile.”
These Nicaraguans, he added, “are now safe and without being tortured and that is why we feel happy.” “I have no doubt that the dictatorship will initiate new kidnappings,” he adds.
Arturo McFields Tinderformer Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), today exiled for denouncing the arbitrariness of the regime, published a video on “Without a doubt we are happy but this has to stop,” he said.
They banish and release 135 political prisoners. They should never have been arrested. Now heading to Guatemala and one day they will return and we will return to Nicaragua 🇳🇮 pic.twitter.com/kWzZY1KRC3
— Arturo McFields Tinder (@ArturoMcfields) September 5, 2024
“The dictatorship has turned Nicaragua into a gigantic prison in which anyone is imprisoned: teachers, professors, poets, environmentalists, religious people, anyone who does not kneel to power,” McFields lamented; But he finally highlighted that this release is a sign that “the dictatorship is cornered and that these people should never have been imprisoned.”
Humberto Belli, former Nicaraguan education minister and former member of the Sandinista Front (Nicaragua’s governing party), told ACI Prensa that what happened to the exiles today “may sound like good news and in some ways it is, especially for relatives, but we must see that all these arrests of the 135 have been totally arbitrary.
“They are being punished with exile. This is a pretty harsh penalty,” he lamented.
“It is also an exile that has not been achieved through judicial processes,” said Belli, who lives in Miami and who was exiled in 2023, in a group of 94 citizens who were stripped of their nationality and their property, something which also, he said, happens with this group of 135.
Note: Humberto Belli’s statements were added.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.