WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released the below statement in reaction to the release of more than 200 political prisoners from unjust detention in Nicaragua:
“For two years, hundreds of Nicaraguan political leaders, democratic activists, and human rights defenders languished in Daniel Ortega’s gulags for nothing more than speaking truth to power and exercising their fundamental freedoms. Subjected to inhumane conditions, including lack of access to adequate medical care, prolonged solitary confinement, malnourishment, and minimal contact with the outside world, their entirely unjust and wrongful detentions ended today.
“I applaud the Biden administration’s landmark humanitarian accomplishment in securing the release of the more than 200 political prisoners and welcome them to the United States. Yet our work to defend democracy and protections for human rights in Nicaragua is far from finished. The international community must not waiver in its efforts to push the brutal Ortega-Murillo dictatorship to restore democratic governance, and demand the end of its campaign of violence and repression.”
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