Nicaragua’s opposition on Friday signed a timetable for reaching agreements to free a total of 802 people considered political prisoners, but releases have not started.
The Civic Alliance group said that the lists of prisoners in its possession still have to be collated with those compiled by the government and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Opposition negotiator Mario Arana said that he had hoped the government would release a first group of inmates over the weekend or early next week, but the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega refused to commit to that.
About 640 are in prison and 162 are under a form of house arrest.
Azahalea Solis, one of the main leaders of the alliance and a negotiator in talks with the government aimed at resolving a political standoff, said in an interview that the 162 released from prison and placed under house arrest last month could be granted more definitive freedom under a proposed deal.
Under such a deal, all 802 people detained since protests erupted in April last year would have unrestricted freedom and see their charges and trials annulled, she said.
Security forces and armed, pro-government civilian groups killed hundreds in their crackdown on demonstrators who last year sought Ortega’s exit from office, independent monitors have said.
This week, as negotiations that began on Feb. 27 were put on hold over the issue of jailed government opponents, Ortega’s government agreed to release them all within 90 days, prompting opposition negotiators to return to the talks.
In the past, authorities have repeatedly characterized anti-government demonstrators as “terrorists” and “coup plotters.”
Speaking at a political event on Thursday night, Ortega told supporters in an apparent allusion to the negotiations that “we do not all think alike, but despite our ideological and differences, we must unite around a sacred goal, which is peace.”
Solis told reporters that the 90-day window for releases is a maximum and could end up being shorter.
Still, she said that it would be “a slow and complex” process, because it entails documenting a long list of individual cases, including prisoners who have not been prosecuted, others facing trial and some who have already been convicted.
The alliance has demanded that police stop detaining government opponents, because otherwise, “the list of prisoners will keep growing,” Solis said.
“May all of them go free and clean, without a criminal record, because all the arrests were illegal and due process was violated,” she said.
The opposition is also seeking guarantees for the safe return of about 52,000 people who have fled the country, and asking that government opponents be able to secure jobs, return to university and get medical care.
The alliance would also demand discussion of disarming the pro-government paramilitary groups that attacked protesters, often visibly in coordination with security forces, Solis said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS