Activists, friends and family await the arrival of some of the more than 200 political prisoners who were jailed by Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime during a ferocious two-year political crackdown, and who have have now reportedly been freed and flown to the United States.
Nicaragua’s crackdown began in June 2021 as President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, moved to obliterate any challenge to their Sandinista government before the November presidential election. Over the following months scores of opponents were thrown in jail before Ortega – a former revolutionary icon who has been in power since 2007 – won another five-year term in an election the US president, Joe Biden, claimed had been 'rigged'
‘This is huge’: Nicaragua frees 222 political prisoners and flies them to US