SW News: The US State Department on Saturday imposed visa restrictions on 100 more Nicaraguan officials for their role in supporting the oppressive regime of President Daniel Ortega.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in his social media accounts that his office has taken steps to impose visa restrictions on 100 Nicaraguan officials who restrict Nicaraguans’ human rights and undermine democracy.

“We call on the regime to unconditionally and immediately release Bishop Álvarez and all those unjustly detained,” Blinken wrote.

Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of the Nicaraguan government, was jailed by the Ortega regime for supposedly helping anti-government protesters. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison after he refused to board a plane carrying exiles to the United States in February.

To win a fourth consecutive term in the 2021 elections, which were widely denounced as a farce, Ortega imprisoned scores of opposition leaders. Additionally, he has made several nongovernmental organizations illegal. Since then, numerous opponents have been found guilty or tried in hurried proceedings on vague allegations akin to treason.

Before this, the State Department had revoked the visas of key Nicaraguan officials, judges who had found the opposition leaders guilty, and lawmakers who had helped to pass legislation outlawing NGOs and civic organizations.

As many as 116 people associated with the Ortega dictatorship were previously subject to visa restrictions, including mayors, prosecutors, university administrators, as well as police, prison, and military officials.

The Nicaraguan government nationalized a prominent Jesuit institution this week because it was a Centre of terrorism, the most recent in a string of measures taken against the Catholic Church and opposition figures. The opposition was expelled, imprisoned, or in hiding, and Ortega, 75, had complete control over all government institutions, shattering any remaining hope that the nation would soon return to a democratic course.