The Catholic News Agency (ACI Prensa) portrayed the situation experienced by political prisoners in the cells of the Judicial Assistance Directorate of Managua known as “El Nuevo Chipote” and denounced that they keep the Catholic priests captured by the regime of Daniel Ortega.
“After listening to some relatives of the political prisoners held there, the president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh), Vilma Núñez, said that Chipote should be called a “torture center.” In her opinion “there is a macabre exhibition inside El Chipote so that the prisoners collapse and those of us who are outside, the companions and relatives, collapse” », highlights the international Catholic media.
Related news: Central American organization condemns “the open confrontation” against the Catholic Church of Nicaragua
ACI Prensa included the testimony of a police officer who deserted along with other colleagues, after the repression of the 2018 demonstrations by the dictatorship «he told The Voice of America how his stay in the torture prison was. “I who went to leave many people there, I met, but I never thought of living it personally, it is a total hell because you know that you are meeting people transformed into monsters, people who have no heart and knowing that in that place you have no way to breathe , you lack air, you lack sun, you lack everything you need as a human being “”, was part of the ex-police officer’s statements.
«From Costa Rica, the former police officer presented with the pseudonym “Carlos” for security reasons, recounted how some of the torture he suffered were. “I couldn’t sleep with my body completely tortured: teeth knocked out, parts of my toenails ripped out, electric shocks, taking my life in a way I didn’t expect,” he recalled.
Among the priests who are currently in this prison are Fr. Oscar Benavidez of the Diocese of Siuna; in addition to Ramiro Tijerino, José Luis Diaz, Sadiel Eugarrios and Raúl González; seminarians Darvin Leyva and Melquín Sequeira; and cameraman Sergio Cárdenas, from the Diocese of Matagalpa.
The Catholic agency denounces the arrest of the religious leaders «with the exception of Fr. Benavidez, all the others were arrested in the early hours of Friday, August 19 in the Bishopric of Matagalpa, when the Police, related to the Daniel Ortega dictatorship, kidnapped Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, now under house arrest».
Related news: Diocese of Estelí addresses a letter to Ortega and accuses him of “persecuting the Church”
Despite widespread condemnation by the international community and human rights organizations, the Nicaraguan regime continues to intensify its repression against religious leaders.
On the afternoon of Sunday, August 14, he also arrested the priest Óscar Benavidez, pastor of the Holy Spirit Church of Mulukukú, being the third religious arrested in this 2022. Before them, two priests had already been prosecuted before the Ortega justice for crimes of rape and assault.
