Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government on Monday released 91 opposition prisoners held following a deadly crackdown on 2018 protests in the Central American country.
Among those released was Belgian-born student leader Amaya Coppens, her family and a local rights organization said.
The Interior Ministry said a total of 91 “opponents” had been released under what it called a “special family coexistence program”.
Vice President Rosario Murillo, who is also Ortega’s wife, said the move showed the government was seeking to “contribute to reconciliation” following more than a year of opposition protest against his rule.
Regime forces and pro-government militias have been blamed for more than 300 deaths since April last year, when protests against Ortega mushroomed into an uprising that was brutally suppressed.
Critics accuse Ortega, a former rebel hero who has been in power since 2007, of running a repressive dictatorship. He was most recently elected in 2016 for a mandate that would keep him in office until 2021.
Coppens was arrested in mid-November for being part of a group of volunteers trying to deliver water to hunger-striking mothers of political prisoners.
Coppens, 25 — who has been jailed twice in the last two years for her part in anti-government protests — said she will continue to demand “freedom, justice and democracy for Nicaragua.”
