United States announces the release of 135 Nicaraguan political prisoners

Early this Thursday, September 5, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo released 135 political prisoners and put them on a plane bound for Guatemala, according to information provided by the United States Government to through a statement signed by Jake SullivanNational Security Advisor to the Administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

“The Biden-Harris Administration today secured the release of 135 political prisoners unjustly detained in Nicaragua, on humanitarian grounds. No one should be imprisoned for peacefully exercising their fundamental rights to free expression, association, and the practice of their religion,” the press release states. Shortly afterward, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo confirmed the arrival of the political prisoners in Guatemala City.

“Our country has shown its firm democratic conviction, which roundly rejects threats of authoritarian regression,” Arévalo said on X, formerly Twitter. “Today we reaffirm that commitment and return the international solidarity that we have received so many times, welcoming 135 Nicaraguan brothers, freed political prisoners. Only in freedom, democracy, life and humanity flourish. Welcome, Nicaraguan brothers!”

The United States will offer political prisoners “the opportunity to seek legal ways to rebuild their lives in the United States or other countries through the Office of Safe Mobility initiative.” “The United States once again calls on the Government of Nicaragua to immediately end the arbitrary detention and detention of its citizens for merely exercising their fundamental freedoms,” Sullivan said.

As of the publication of this article, the Ortega-Murillo regime has not said anything about this release. However, this is not the first time that the United States has mediated to obtain the release of political prisoners. The first major operation was the ““Operation Nica Welcome”, The operation was secretly handled by a small group from the State Department and the US Embassy in Managua on February 9, 2023. At that time, 222 political prisoners – including opposition leaders, presidential candidates, journalists and university students, among others – were sent into exile to the United States, where they benefited from the Humanitarian Parole program. While they were on the plane to Dulles, Washington, on the so-called “freedom flight,” the Sandinista administration stripped them all of their Nicaraguan nationality, confiscated their assets and declared them fugitives from justice.

As of September 5, civil society organizations counted 151 political prisoners in Nicaragua. However, the identities of the 135 sent to Guatemala are still unknown. The United States only announced that the group includes 13 members of the evangelical organization Puerta de la Montaña, based in Texas, “along with lay Catholics, students and others that Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo consider a threat to their authoritarian government.”

“This is the day we have been praying for and believing in God,” said Jon Britton Hancock, founder and president of Mountain Gate, the organization accused by the Ortega-Murillo regime of money laundering in the context of their religious persecution, especially against Catholics. “Members of Congress, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security worked tirelessly to secure his release from his unjust imprisonment,” According to The New York Times after the release of the shepherds.

Hancock, who was charged but never arrested, got members of Congress, notably Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., to urge the ministers’ release.

Marisela Mejia, 34, a minister and administrator at Mountain Gate, had just given birth when she was arrested. She and her husband, Walner O. Blandon, the mission’s senior pastor, were each sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $80 million. Their two children, both born in the United States, stayed with relatives in Nicaragua during their parents’ imprisonment and were allowed to join them in Guatemala.