Washington D.C., September 5, 2024.- Race and Equality and the organizations that make up the campaign #NicasLibreYa, celebrate the recent release of 135 people who were deprived of their liberty for political reasons and held in inhumane conditions in Nicaragua.

This morning, the 5th of September, 135 people were liberated and subsequently exiled to Guatemala following negotiations between the country and the United States. There they were granted humanitarian assistance so they are able to restart their lives.

Among these 135 people, there are 13 detained members of the Mountain Gateway organization, as well as lay Catholics, students, human rights defenders, journalists, and others, “who Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo consider a threat to their authoritarian rule,” according to a statement published by the White House.

We are happy to know they will not longer suffer torture, and will be able to receive medical attention and have access to adequate nutrition, conditions that they did not have during their unjust imprisonments. However, we are worried that arbitrary detention and imprisonments for political reasons will continue being part of the repressive patterns that the regime has imposed upon all Nicaraguans since before the political crisis of 2018.

Following Guardabarranco Operation in which 222 political prisoners were liberated in February 2023, arbitrary detentions continued and the regime went from holding just 35 political prisoners in jail to 151, according to a statistic from the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners in July 2024.

Race and Equality and the #NicasLibreYa campaign demand that this pattern stop and that thinking differently stops constituting a motive for Nicaraguans to be incarcerated, tortured, isolated, and then exiled to other countries. We urge the regime in the coming months to cease arbitrary detentions for political reasons. 

Although leaving prison and Nicaragua allows these individuals to rebuild their lives in another country, this often entails psychological effects due to exile, health problems as a result of the lack of medical attention during incarceration and, on occasion, forced separation from their families, since the regime does not allow them to leave Nicaragua.

The regime must guarantee that no persecution will follow these people beyond Nicaragua’s borders and the international community must ensure that recent reforms in the Nicaraguan Penal Code do not extend the claws of repression to other countries where they might find exiled persons.  

The confiscation of property, cancellation of non-governmental organizations and chambers’ of commerce legal status, are also systematic human rights violations against the Nicaraguan people that continue and the international community must hold Ortega and Murillo responsible, as functionaries for all the crimes they have committed.

It is time that the Ortega-Murillo regime see that global solidarity with Nicaraguans is greater than its desire for power as demonstrated by the actions of the governments of Guatemala and the United States in the transfer and care of these 135 persons released from prison.

We appreciate that, for the second time, the government of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have used diplomacy to achieve the liberation of people deprived of their liberty for political reasons and that, in Guatemala, President Bernado Arévalo, accepted to receive and provide them with, in conjunction with the USA, humanitarian assistance as necessary.

As indicated by the statement by the White House, these people may opt to relocate to the United States or another country through the Secure Mobility program implemented by the Biden-Harris administration.

We do not forget that jails in Nicaragua still hold twenty people who have been detained for thinking differently and Race and Equality and #NicasLibreYa are resolute that we will continue to fight for their liberty.

All of them are innocent!

Nicaragua deserves to live in democracy!