Biden Admin Secures Release of 135 Political Prisoners

President Joe Biden’s administration secured the release of 135 political prisoners this week.
On Thursday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced that 135 “unjustly detained political prisoners in Nicaragua” were being released on “humanitarian grounds” following work by the Biden-Harris administration.
“No one should be put in jail for peacefully exercising their fundamental rights of free expression, association, and practicing their religion,” Sullivan said in a statement. “The 135 Nicaraguan citizens released today included 13 members of the Texas-based Mountain Gateway organization, along with Catholic laypeople, students, and others who Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo consider a threat to their authoritarian rule.”
Sullivan noted that the Guatemalan government will accept the political prisoners released from Nicaragua, and thanked the nation for accepting the citizens.
“Once in Guatemala, these individuals will be offered the opportunity to apply for lawful ways to rebuild their lives in the United States or other countries through President Biden’s Safe Mobility Office initiative. President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris are grateful to President [Bernardo] Arévalo for his continued leadership across the region in addressing humanitarian issues and championing democratic freedom,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan also noted in his statement that the U.S. government will continue to call on Nicaragua to end the “arbitrary arrest and detention of its citizens for merely exercising their fundamental freedoms.”
According to The New York Times, the prisoners were members of the Mountain Gateway, who were previously arrested in December upon a completion of an evangelical crusade, which included almost one million individuals. The two pastors involved in the crusade were fined almost $1 billion and sentenced to 12 to 15 years in jail in Nicaragua, the Times reported.
In a statement obtained by The New York Times, Jon Britton Hancock, the founder and president of Mountain Gateway, applauded the efforts by the Biden administration for the release of the prisoners.
“This is the day we have been praying and believing God for,” Hancock said. “Members of Congress, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security worked tirelessly to effect their release from their unjust imprisonment.”
Attorney Ryan Fayhee, who represented the two pastors, told The New York Times that “this seems to be part of a trend: expelling religious people and church leadership.”
While speaking about Nicaragua, Fayhee said: “I’m hopeful it’ll be a safer place moving forward, where people can choose to exercise fundamental human rights, like exercising choice of religion and gathering.”
This article includes reported from the Associated Press.