The U.S. State Division has imposed visa restrictions on 100 extra Nicaraguan officers for his or her position in supporting the regime of President Daniel Ortega
FILE – A banner emblazoned with a picture of Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega is waved by a supporter in Managua, Nicaragua, April 30, 2018. The U.S. State Division on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023, imposed visa restrictions on 100 extra Nicaraguan officers for his or her position in supporting the Ortega regime. (AP Picture/Alfredo Zuniga, File)
The Related Press
MEXICO CITY — The U.S. State Division on Saturday imposed visa restrictions on 100 extra Nicaraguan officers for his or her position in supporting the regime of President Daniel Ortega.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in his social media accounts that his workplace “has taken steps to impose visa restrictions on 100 Nicaraguan officers who limit Nicaraguans’ human rights and undermine democracy.”
“We name on the regime to unconditionally and instantly launch Bishop Álvarez and all these unjustly detained,” Blinken wrote.
Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of the Nicaraguan authorities, was jailed by the Ortega regime for supposedly serving to anti-government protesters. He was sentenced to 26 years in jail, after he refused to board a airplane carrying exiles to america in February.
Ortega jailed dozens of opposition figures as a way to win a fourth consecutive time period in 2021 elections that had been broadly criticized as a farce. He has additionally outlawed dozens of nongovernmental organizations.
Since then, dozens of opponents have been tried or convicted in short trials on obscure fees equal to treason.
The State Division had beforehand pulled the visas of prime Nicaraguan officers, in addition to judges who convicted the opposition leaders and legislators who had cooperated in banning NGOs and civic teams.
It beforehand imposed visa restrictions on 116 people linked to the Ortega regime, “together with mayors, prosecutors, college directors, in addition to police, jail, and navy officers.”
This week, the Nicaraguan authorities confiscated a prestigious Jesuit-run college alleging it was a “heart of terrorism,” the most recent in a collection of actions by authorities in opposition to the Catholic Church and opposition figures.
The Treasury Division has frozen the U.S. belongings of the protection minister and different officers within the military, telecom and mining sectors. As with dozens of Nicaraguan officers already underneath sanctions, U.S. residents had been prohibited from having dealings with them.
With all authorities establishments firmly inside Ortega’s grasp and the opposition exiled, jailed or in hiding, the 75-year-old chief eroded what hope remained that the nation might quickly return to a democratic path.