The United States has secured the release of 135 political prisoners held in Nicaragua, including students and members of a faith organisation.

In a statement on Thursday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the prisoners were among the thousands of Nicaraguans caught up in a multiyear rights crackdown by the government of President Daniel Ortega.

The prisoners were sent to neighbouring Guatemala and could relocate from there to the US, according to Sullivan.

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo’s office confirmed a plane carrying formerly detained Nicaraguans had landed in the country early on Thursday.

“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.

He said the political prisoners had been arrested because they were considered a threat to the “authoritarian rule” of Ortega and his vice president and wife, Rosario Murillo. He called on Nicaragua to “immediately cease the arbitrary arrest and detention of its citizens for merely exercising their fundamental freedoms”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also hailed the release in a post on the social media platform X.

“Nicaraguans deserve democracy and freedom from persecution in their home country,” the top diplomat wrote.

The announcement comes two days after the United Nations Human Rights Office released a report saying that Ortega’s government continues to “persecute not only those who express dissenting opinions but also any individual or organisation that operates independently or does not fall directly under their control”.

The report detailed dozens of cases where detainees were “tortured through various forms of sexual abuse and electric shocks”.

The crackdowns largely began amid the student-led protests that swept the country in 2018.

Those protests were sparked by a proposed social security law that would have increased worker contributions while reducing pensions and other benefits.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets for peaceful demonstrations, but Ortega’s government declared their protests illegal and deployed paramilitary forces. From the start of the protests in April 2018 to July 2019, an estimated 355 people were killed.

Ortega’s strong response has been seen as part of a broader autocratic lurch. The president, who came to power in 2007, has since lifted presidential term limits and consolidated all branches of government under his control.

His administration has continued to take actions to tamp down dissent, including before the most recent elections in 2021.

Authorities arrested or forced into exile dozens of opposition candidates in the lead-up to the vote. They also imprisoned several leaders of the country’s influential Catholic Church, who served as mediators during the protests.

Last week, for instance, Ortega’s government banned 169 nongovernmental groups, bringing the total number of banned organisations to more than 4,000 since 2018.

In a statement earlier this week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said it was “distressing to see civic space continuing to be severely eroded in Nicaragua, and how the exercise of fundamental civil and political rights is becoming more and more difficult”.

The UN report also raised concerns over the proposal of a new law that would allow Nicaraguan authorities to prosecute individuals living abroad for certain crimes. The law could be used to “pressure and intimidate exiled citizens and foreigners for the legitimate exercise of their right to freedom of expression, and other rights”, the report said.

Among those released this week were 13 members of the Texas-based evangelical Christian group Mountain Gateway. Authorities in Nicaragua had accused the group of money laundering and organised crime, charges it has denied.

The release follows a similar flight in February 2023, when 200 prisoners from Nicaragua were released and flown to the US.

While rights observers typically hail such releases, they have also raised concerns that they provide an opportunity for Ortega to flush Nicaragua of dissent. Ortega has also sought to strip the previously released prisoners of their citizenship and property in Nicaragua.