The Justice Commission of the Archdiocese of Managua sympathized with Monsignor Silvio Fonseca whose passport was withheld in November, without any justification, while he tried to leave the country to travel to the United States to check his health.
“We sympathize with our brother priest, Monsignor Silvio Fonseca, whose passport, personal document for travel, has been withheld,” reads the statement from the Justice Commission, which also cites articles 31 and 32 of the Political Constitution. of Nicaragua, referring to the free mobilization to which Nicaraguans have rights.
In article 31, the Constitution indicates that Nicaraguans have the right to establish their domicile in any part of the country and to enter and leave the country freely, while in article 32 it is indicated that “no person is obliged to do what the law does not command, nor is it prevented from doing what the law does not prohibit ”.
Fonseca would travel to the United States on November 7 when he was detained by officials from Migration and Foreigners who assured him that his passport could not be read. Then they withheld the document from him and sent it to the Directorate of Migration and Immigration for removal, according to what he told the media shortly after the incident occurred.
Despite multiple attempts to retrieve his travel document, the regime gave him no answers. “I went with everything in order and I have my valid passport and I have traveled with that passport. They told me that the computer did not read the passport, the information well. I have always traveled with that passport. I was heading to the United States, for personal reasons, for a health trip. I’ve always traveled, ”Fonseca said at the time.
The Nicaraguan regime decides arbitrarily Who is withholding their passport and who is allowing them to travel, since an unspecified number of journalists, businessmen and citizens that he calls opponents have not been allowed to leave through the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport, without explaining reasons or legal justifications.
Some, like the current political prisoner, the former foreign minister Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, his passport was withheld from him at the Peñas Blancas border. He was later detained by the Ortega police on July 28, and since then he has been at the Judicial Aid Directorate known as the “new Chipote”.
In the same statement, the Archdiocese of Managua Justice Commission calls for the release of more than 160 political prisoners who are in the prisons of Daniel Ortega. “This Christmas, we wish, echoing the sentiment of God’s holy people, that those who are deprived of liberty for minor crimes or for reasons related to politics, may have a Christmas in freedom in communion with their families,” reads part of the document Posted this December 21.
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