The U.S. gov­ern­ment an­nounced Thurs­day that it se­cured the re­lease of 135 Nicaraguan po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers, who have ar­rived in Guatemala where they will ap­ply for en­try to the Unit­ed States or oth­er coun­tries.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­vi­sor Jake Sul­li­van said in a state­ment that they were re­leased on hu­man­i­tar­i­an grounds.

“No one should be put in jail for peace­ful­ly ex­er­cis­ing their fun­da­men­tal rights of free ex­pres­sion, as­so­ci­a­tion, and prac­tic­ing their re­li­gion,” Sul­li­van said.

Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of State for West­ern Hemi­sphere Af­fairs Er­ic Ja­cob­stein, speak­ing with re­porters, said that the Nicaraguan gov­ern­ment re­ceived noth­ing in ex­change for the pris­on­ers’ re­lease and the ne­go­ti­a­tion sig­nalled no change in U.S. pol­i­cy to­ward the gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Daniel Or­te­ga.

“Though the pres­sure it­self has been con­sis­tent, the plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion of this re­lease was rapid, and we’ve worked quick­ly to fa­cil­i­tate the trav­el of these in­di­vid­u­als and re­al­ly en­sure their safe­ty at every step of the jour­ney,” Ja­cob­stein said, adding that Nicaragua con­tin­ues to “un­just­ly” de­tain peo­ple.

Asked if there were some pris­on­ers Nicaragua was will­ing to re­lease, but who re­fused to leave, he de­clined to com­ment.

Ja­cob­stein, who greet­ed the Nicaraguans in Guatemala, said “these are in­di­vid­u­als, some of whom have been vic­tims of tor­ture ... who’ve had an ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult time, we did find them gen­er­al­ly in very good health and spir­its.”

One thing that struck the U.S. diplo­mat about some of his con­ver­sa­tions with the pris­on­ers was the “true pet­ti­ness and cru­el­ty” of Or­te­ga’s gov­ern­ment for im­pris­on­ing peo­ple for no jus­ti­fi­able rea­son.

Among the Nicaraguans re­leased were 13 mem­bers of a Texas-based re­li­gious char­i­ty, Catholic laypeo­ple, stu­dents and oth­ers.

Guatemalan Pres­i­dent Bernar­do Aré­va­lo agreed to host the Nicaraguans while they ap­ply for en­try to the U.S.

The Nicaraguans rolled out of a Guatemalan air base in the cap­i­tal on bus­es Thurs­day morn­ing, with some wav­ing from the win­dows.

Nicaragua’s gov­ern­ment did not im­me­di­ate­ly con­firm the an­nounce­ment on the pris­on­ers’ re­lease.

Nicaraguan hu­man rights ad­vo­cate Hay­deé Castil­lo said the re­lease of the pris­on­ers was a “tri­umph for the Nicaraguan peo­ple’s re­sis­tance.” She not­ed that the pris­on­ers weren’t re­al­ly freed be­cause their re­lease comes with forced dis­place­ment from their coun­try.

“No­body should be held pris­on­er for think­ing dif­fer­ent­ly,” Castil­lo said.

She said ad­vo­cates were re­view­ing lists to see how many such pris­on­ers re­main in cus­tody.

Ivan­nia Al­varez, an ex­iled Nicaraguan and mem­ber of the Recog­ni­tion Mech­a­nism for Po­lit­i­cal Pris­on­ers, said that her most re­cent count had been 151 jailed, sug­gest­ing that some of them are still de­tained.

The Texas-based re­li­gious or­ga­ni­za­tion Moun­tain Gate­way con­firmed the re­lease of 13 of its peo­ple af­ter nine months in jail.

“This is the day we have prayed for,” pas­tor Jon Brit­ton Han­cock, Moun­tain Gate­way’s founder, said in a state­ment.

En­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Amaru Ruiz said on so­cial plat­forms that among those re­leased were eight In­dige­nous for­est rangers.

“The Unit­ed States again calls on the gov­ern­ment of Nicaragua to im­me­di­ate­ly cease the ar­bi­trary ar­rest and de­ten­tion of its cit­i­zens for mere­ly ex­er­cis­ing their fun­da­men­tal free­doms,” Sul­li­van said.

The U.S. gov­ern­ment re­ferred to them as po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers and pris­on­ers of con­science.

The an­nounce­ment came just two days af­ter Nicaragua’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly ap­proved changes to the crim­i­nal code al­low­ing the gov­ern­ment to try Nicaraguans and for­eign­ers in ab­sen­tia.

Op­po­nents and or­ga­ni­za­tions that have fled or been forced in­to ex­ile in Pres­i­dent Or­te­ga’s years­long cam­paign to si­lence crit­i­cal voic­es could be fined, sen­tenced to lengthy prison terms and see their prop­er­ty seized by the gov­ern­ment un­der the ap­proved changes.

Last year, the gov­ern­ment ex­iled more than 300 op­po­si­tion fig­ures, strip­ping them of their na­tion­al­i­ty. Far more Nicaraguans have fled in­to ex­ile them­selves to es­cape the re­pres­sion that fol­lowed mas­sive 2018 protests that Or­te­ga dubbed a failed coup with in­ter­na­tion­al back­ing.

“These in­di­vid­u­als safe­ly and vol­un­tar­i­ly ar­rived in Guatemala,” U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken said in a state­ment. “We thank Pres­i­dent Bernar­do Aré­va­lo and his ad­min­is­tra­tion for their ef­forts and sup­port in wel­com­ing them.”

“Nicaraguan au­thor­i­ties un­just­ly de­tained these in­di­vid­u­als for ex­er­cis­ing their fun­da­men­tal free­doms of ex­pres­sion, of as­so­ci­a­tion and peace­ful as­sem­bly, and of re­li­gion or be­lief,” Blinken said.

The gov­ern­ment has shut­tered more than 5,000 or­ga­ni­za­tions since 2018, many of them re­li­gious in na­ture. —GUATEMALA CITY (AP)

______

Sto­ry by SO­NIA PÉREZ D. | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Matthew Lee in Wash­ing­ton and Gabriela Selser in Mex­i­co City con­tributed to this re­port.