Daniel Ortega expels 222 political prisoners from Nicaragua
Increasingly the country looks like Cuba
Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime has long jailed and mistreated its opponents. So it appeared to be a cause for celebration when, on February 9th, 222 political prisoners were taken from cells across the country and put on a flight to the United States. “We are going to be able to walk freely without fear that they [the regime] are following us, persecuting us, or will kill us,” says Ezequiel González, a 23-year-old student who was among them.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “A dictator’s purge”
From the February 18th 2023 edition
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