Nicaraguan bishop Rolando Álvarez, critic of President Daniel Ortega’s government, inside his church. Photo: EFE
Álvarez, who is bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the diocese of Estelí, is part of a group of at least 12 people, including 5 priests, whom the police accuse of trying to “organize violent groups”.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) stressed that the bishop and his companions are also the subject of “a series of information disseminated to the public, denied, repeated several times that are practically causing havoc at the general level of the population, one state of anxiety and mass hysteria “.
“We denounce these crimes to the world, we denounce Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo (president and vice president respectively) to the world. What else can be done in Nicaragua? (…) the regime’s new weapon of mental destruction“, added the Cenidh, which described the action as” torture “.
On Tuesday, Jagger pleaded with Pope Francis not to “abandon” the Nicaraguan Catholic Church.
“I pray, I pray, the Holy Father to speak (…) not to abandon his bishops and his priests, in particular Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, whose life is in danger“said Jagger, a Nicaraguan resident in London.
Jagger also said he fears that Álvarez will be forced into exile, as happened in 2019 with the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, a critic of Ortega.
Relations between the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church have been marked by friction and distrust in the past 43 years.
Ortega has branded as “terrorists” the Nicaraguan bishops who have acted as mediators of a national dialogue that has sought a peaceful solution to the political and social crisis that the country has been going through since April 2018.
The situation in Nicaragua has worsened after the controversial elections last November in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth, fourth consecutive and second term along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with his main contenders in prison.
Source: AFP and EFE
Source: Clarin
