CNN
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Spain will be offering a trail to citizenship for 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners who had been just lately launched from jail and plenty of of whom had been despatched to the United States on Thursday, a spokesman for Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed CNN.
The spokesman didn’t instantly reply to a CNN query relating to the main points of the be offering, together with how temporarily they may obtain citizenship. The spokesman spoke at the situation of anonymity, bringing up native skilled norms.
Questions have fixed at the destiny of the greater than 200 new arrivals to the USA, who had been additionally stripped in their Nicaraguan citizenship on Thursday.
Their unlock adopted years of repression by way of the Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega. The authoritarian chief has jailed dozens of opposition figures and activists, in particular within the lead as much as the final elections in November of 2021.
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price mentioned Thursday that the people, who all flew to Dulles International airport in Washington, shall be granted humanitarian parole for 2 years, permitting them to stay US and giving them the time to use for asylum if they want.
Each of the people who left Nicaragua “voluntarily consented to travel,” and “there were two individuals who, on their own volition, chose not to travel to the United States,” Price mentioned.
Among the launched prisoners is one American, consistent with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who welcomed their transfer, calling it a manufactured from American international relations.
Ortega on Thursday mentioned their unlock was once no longer negotiated with Washington. “We just wanted them to go,” Ortega mentioned.
After calling the discharge of the prisoners “a message for peace and stability for Nicaragua,” the 77-year-old chief mentioned the unique record of the ones to be launched contained 228 names, however the USA had vetoed a minimum of 4 prisoners as a result of they’d been convicted of not unusual crimes.
Bishop Rolando Alvarez, a high-profile member of the Catholic Church who has lengthy antagonistic the Ortega regime and was once detained in August 2022, was once additionally because of be launched, however he refused, Ortega mentioned. Instead, 11 contributors of the clergy had been launched on Thursday morning.
The political prisoners had been greeted by way of US officers, activists and contributors of the Nicaraguan diaspora at Dulles airport.
One of the arrivals was once political activist Felix Maradiaga, who informed CNN en Espanol that they simply discovered what was once going down when by way of the aircraft.
“They made us sign some documents saying in one single line that we were leaving the country of our free will with no further explanation,” he mentioned. “On one side what happened is shocking, but on the other, I’m overwhelmed by this moment, the opportunity to hug our family. Personally, I haven’t seen my daughter in more than three years.”
