One of Ortega’s freed political prisoners: “The most beautiful thing is to feel freedom again. We were unjustly detained. One day we will return to our homeland”

When Mario Iglesias Pereira saw an official from the US Embassy in the prison where he was being held in Managua, he knew that the time had come for his release. This dark-skinned, robust, slow-speaking man tells the restaurant of a hotel in Guatemala that the presence of the American was a clear sign that he could leave the prison where he was unjustly imprisoned only for publicly expressing his support for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega has imposed a regime of terror and persecution that prevents any kind of criticism or dissent. “The most beautiful thing is to feel freedom again,” says Iglesias Pereira with red eyes. “We were unjustly detained. One day we will return to our homeland,” says the man with poise. He is one of the 135 political prisoners released by the Ortega regime on Thursday and who arrived in Guatemala escorted by officials of the Joe Biden administration in an agreement between both states whose details have not yet been revealed.

Iglesias Pereira cries as he sips a fruit juice. He says that on Wednesday night his jailers ordered him and his other inmates from the maximum security prison “galleron” 16-1 to leave The Model from Managua to dress in clean, new clothes. There was a commotion in the compound, where 24 political prisoners of the regime were serving sentences considered spurious by human rights organizations. Iglesias Pereira, 34, was arrested in the capital on Sunday, July 16, 2023, at 5:30 p.m., when six police patrols surrounded his house, denounced, he says, by a neighbor who heard him shouting his support for the Nicaraguan Church. His Catholicism was his crime. When he saw the police deployment at his home, he decided to turn himself in and faced a ridiculous trial, in which the accused was convicted from the beginning. The Ortega justice system requested four years in prison against him, accusing him of “treason,” espionage in favor of the United States, “undermining sovereignty” and other charges. “Every Nicaraguan citizen is at risk for speaking their mind, for not thinking like them,” says this man, father of a six-year-old child, who on Thursday spent his first night in freedom after a year of imprisonment. “The first night in a bed without fear of falling out of bed or being eaten by mosquitoes,” he adds with a shy smile.

The government of President Joe Biden reported on Thursday morning that the Ortega regime decided to release 135 political prisoners and sent them on a plane bound for Guatemala. “The Biden and Harris Administration achieved the release of 135 political prisoners unjustly detained in Nicaragua, for humanitarian reasons. No one should be imprisoned for peacefully exercising their fundamental rights to free expression, association, and practice of their religion,” said Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to the United States Government. through a statement published on Thursday. Washington has demanded that the Ortega regime “peacefully return to democracy” and release all political prisoners in Nicaragua.

Mario Iglesias Pereira is one of hundreds of Nicaraguans who have been repressed for expressing criticism of a regime that has imposed a state of terror on the population. Although he claims not to have suffered physical torture, this man claims that there was psychological intimidation and he bears the harsh trauma of imprisonment. He sighs with relief when he realizes that he is free and says that his religion kept him strong during his time in prison. He is staying with 35 other Nicaraguans in a chain of hotels in Zone 10 of Guatemala City, the epicenter of the Guatemalan movement, and says he is grateful to the government of President Bernardo Arévalo for having welcomed them. He says that he began to feel certain of his release on Wednesday night, when he saw movement from his jailers. Then came the order to take off the blue prisoner’s overalls and they were given new clothes. When he heard the motor of the buses in the prison yards he knew that his luck was changing. Then they were put into the vehicles and then officials from the American embassy arrived. “The only thing they said was that they had reached an agreement for our immediate release, but with the condition that we had to leave the country, that it was not by force, those who wanted to leave were fine, those who said no, agreed, but that we would be expatriated or return to prison, not to our homes,” says Iglesias Pereira as the rain falls in the Guatemalan night.

The US authorities arranged the passports for these political prisoners and have paid not only for their travel, but also for the lodging and care they receive in Guatemala, whose government agreed to receive them. Details of the agreement have not been revealed, but the Arévalo administration has given the Nicaraguans 90 days to be free in its territory. The United States has agreed to grant humanitarian visas for those who want to travel to that country and begin the process of requesting asylum. Iglesias Pereira says that US officials have accompanied them since they left prison, flew with them to Guatemala and interviewed them in this city, to learn the details of their cases and analyze whether they can apply for a US visa. He gets emotional when he remembers when the doors of the plane that took them to Guatemala closed, the detainees recognized each other and hugged each other. He said that the Americans received them warmly. “They told us ‘strength, strength, you are free now.’ They gave us words of encouragement, of support.” The plane took off with its destination to freedom. “The most beautiful thing is to feel freedom again, that is the most beautiful thing after so much time, after being treated as enemies in Nicaragua. We are not enemies of anyone. The only thing we want is to return to our homeland one day,” says the man through tears on the first night of his freedom.