On February 9, 2023, political prisoners in Nicaragua began to live a new chapter accusing them of being opponents of President Daniel Ortega. After imprisonment followed exile.

From the mouth of the Nicaraguan president, the world confirmed yesterday, February 10, that 222 political prisoners were released and deported to the United States.

There are ten priests, deacons and seminarians in the group, but three monks are imprisoned in Nicaragua: two priests “for ordinary crimes” and the bishop for “terrorism”. Ortega claims that they refused to board the plane that the others boarded “voluntarily.”

This is not the only punishment that the government of this Central American country has imposed on opponents. They they would also take away their nationality and before the news that the procedure for declaring them stateless had been initiated, Spain offers them Spanish citizenship.

Judge Octavio Rothschuh, president of the Managua Court of Appeals division, said 222 people were deported because they “traitors of the motherland”.

Ten years in prison in Nicaragua for a priest critical of the regime of Daniel Ortega, who is classified as a ‘conspirator’

Ortega’s authoritarianism is visible again. The right to protest that is promoted in various democratic countries has already been violated in Nicaragua, a nation that is now just writing another chapter in a gray history that is read from the outside, without wanting to encroach on the country’s sovereignty, but with the conviction of defending political rights in general so as not to create harmful precedents for any government.

Exile to economic power may bring better days than prison, but in no way implies democracy. Loss of rights, deprivation of nationality and the power to choose where to live should not be a decision of the regime without support. Laws must be respected by everyone, just as arrogant, authoritarian and anti-democratic actions must be condemned. (OR)