Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has assured that the deportation of the 222 prisoners to the United States on Thursday was not the result of a «negotiation or barter» with Washington, but was due to a matter of principle.
The decision is part of an effort to ensure peace in the country, according to Ortega, who has maintained that in exchange for the deportation of the more than 200 people imprisoned, he has not asked for the lifting of the sanctions imposed by the United States, according to a speech reported by Telesur.
«What did they imagine they were going to ask us for? No, we are not asking for the sanctions to be lifted. We are not asking for anything in return. It is a matter of honor, of dignity, of patriotism and that they take their mercenaries away,» the Nicaraguan president reiterated.
On previous occasions Ortega had raised the possibility of the prisoners being taken to another country, alleging that they were «agents of foreign powers».
«You have to remember that on several occasions (…) I have been suggesting that all these people who were in prison, who were detained for attacking sovereignty, against peace, against the Nicaraguan people, were agents of foreign powers», said Ortega in his speech.
The Government of Nicaragua has authorized this Thursday the release of more than 220 political prisoners, all of them considered «traitors to the homeland» by the regime of Daniel Ortega, and their immediate departure early in the morning on a plane to the United States, within an unprecedented measure that implies leaving all these people without Nicaraguan nationality.
They are accused of committing acts against the independence and sovereignty of Nicaragua, of «inciting» violence and terrorism, of perpetrating actions of «economic destabilization» or of harming «the supreme interests of the nation», explained Judge Octavio Rothschuh of the Court of Appeals of Managua in a brief appearance broadcast on official television.
The situation of the prisoners has been a recurring motive for complaints from the international community and organizations such as the United Nations. The Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners in January put the number of inmates at at least 245, including ten imprisoned before the 2018 protests, considered a turning point.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, also demanded in December the «immediate» release of 225 people who remained «arbitrarily» detained for their dissent against the government of Daniel Ortega. In his periodic report on the situation, he denounced the «precarious» conditions in which these prisoners were being held, as well as the «humiliating and degrading» treatment to which their families were subjected.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
