Nicaragua on Tuesday revoked the citizenship of 135 former political prisoners who were freed and flown to Guatemala last week in a deal negotiated by the United States.
The parting punishment was announced in a statement from the judiciary, which rights activists say is under the thumb of strongman President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.
A court in the capital Managua said the 135 exiled prisoners were being stripped of their citizenship after being convicted "of criminal acts that threaten the sovereignty, independence and self-determination of the Nicaraguan people."
It also ordered that all their assets be seized.
The ruling brings to 451 the number of exiled opposition members who have been stripped of their citizenship since the beginning of 2023, according to an AFP count based on official data.
"We knew that something like this could happen, but not this fast," Pedro Gutierrez, one of the prisoners who was transferred to Guatemala last week, told AFP.
"It's a hard blow, we feel as if we've been stabbed in the chest," said the former car salesman, who was arrested in February in Managua for staging a solo protest to demand the release of jailed Nicaraguan bishop Rolando Alvarez.
The ruling came as the United Nations warned that a new law could lead to even greater repression of opponents of Ortega, a 78-year-old former leftist guerrilla who battled US-backed forces in the 1980s.
Under the law, which came into force last week, Nicaraguans could face up to 30 years in prison and the confiscation of property for acts such as "cybercrimes" and "offenses against the State or institutions."
"These reforms could be used to intensify persecution and repression against Nicaraguans, including those in exile," said Christian Salazar Volkmann of the Geneva-based UN human rights office (OHCHR).
Ortega's mass release of prisoners on September 5 followed a similar operation in February 2023 involving more than 200 prisoners who were flown to the United States.
Those freed last week will also have the opportunity to seek asylum in the United States.
Guatemala has offered them asylum too.
Ortega shot to global prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as a left-wing revolutionary with bookish big square glasses whose Sandinista rebels toppled a US-backed dictatorship.
He returned to power in 2007 and was initially considered more moderate than during his revolutionary years.
But he has since lifted presidential term limits, seized control of all branches of government and led a sweeping crackdown on groups including the Catholic Church and NGOs that he sees as a threat to his rule.
The prisoners released last week included 13 members of an evangelical Christian group based in Texas, which Nicaraguan authorities accused of money laundering and organized crime -- charges the group denies.
More than 5,500 NGOs -- most recently Save the Children -- have been shut down since Ortega was spooked in 2018 by mass protests in which the United Nations estimates 300 people died.
Thousands of Nicaraguans have fled since the unrest, and Ortega's government is under US and European Union sanctions.
Several writers have been stripped of their Nicaraguan citizenship after going into exile.
They include novelist Sergio Ramirez, a key figure in the Sandinista revolution who served as vice president under Ortega in the 1980s but later become critical of him.
Arturo McFields, a former Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States who lives in the United States, said the prisoners released under the latest deal will likely be replaced soon with more Ortega critics.
"A few get freed, some get newly incarcerated and then others get freed," he wrote on the social media platform X.
"This is how this dictatorship has turned Nicaragua into a giant prison," said McFields.
The OHCHR in its annual report on the situation in Nicaragua warned last week of a "serious" deterioration in human rights under Ortega and Murillo.
The report cited violations such as arbitrary arrests of opponents, torture, ill-treatment in detention, increased violence against Indigenous people and attacks on religious freedom.
Nicaragua Attorney General Wendy Morales in a video claimed "injustices, biases and illegalities" in the document, which she said was produced "with a specific agenda."
