The journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, one of the main voices of the Nicaraguan exile, considered today that “there is fear” among the country’s Catholic priests in the face of the “growing increase” of the repression of the Daniel Ortega regime.
“The Ortegas are not against religion, they are against freedom. The Catholic Church stands in solidarity with the victims (of the repression), they want a silent Church, aligned with power,” Chamorro denounced.
The journalist, brother of the former presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro, also imprisoned, participated today in Paris in an act of support for political prisoners in Nicaragua, two days after the Sorbonne granted the doctorate Honoris Causa to the historic ex-guerrilla Dora María Téllez, imprisoned in her country since June 2021.
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According to the latest data available, there are close to a dozen Nicaraguan priests in prison, including the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, both in northern Nicaragua, Rolando Álvarez, accused of being a rebel.
“I speak with many priests and there is fear among them. If they speak, they harm their bishops,” added Chamorro, winner of the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award in 2021.
For the opposition activist, this growing repression against priests and the Catholic Church shows that the Ortega regime also attacks “religious freedom” within its method of “cruelty and revenge.”
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The exile assured that Nicaragua is based on “a messianism” embodied by Ortega and on a “preventive repression” that is similar to those of the regimes of “Cuba, Venezuela and Russia.”
“We need greater international pressure, to achieve the total isolation of that dictatorship,” advocated the journalist, who, however, stressed that the Ortegas will fall if there is also an internal mobilization, for the moment anesthetized by “fear” that reigns in the country.
Chamorro especially appealed to the governments of the democratic left in Latin America to put pressure on Ortega and his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo.
“There is hope, but the agony can be prolonged for a long term,” warned the reporter, who assured that the regime currently controls the Army, the police and the paramilitaries.
The opponent called for more international attention to what is happening in Nicaragua and opted to unite the majority sectors that are dissatisfied with the regime but do not dare to demonstrate.
Today’s event, supported by the Paris City Council, ended with a concert by the young Nicaraguan singer-songwriter Jandir Rodríguez.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which has worsened after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second together with his wife, Rosario Murillo. , as vice president, with her main contenders in prison.
Ortega, 77, has been in power for 15 years and 10 consecutive months, amid accusations of authoritarianism and electoral fraud.
This same week, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CourtHR) declared Nicaragua on Tuesday in “permanent contempt” of the numerous orders to release imprisoned opponents.
Meanwhile, the Committee against Torture and the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture today urged the Ortega regime to comply with the human rights treaties it has signed.
This Wednesday the EFE Agency denounced that the country’s authorities prohibited the entry of its delegate in Managua, the Nicaraguan Luis Felipe Palacios, when he was preparing to return to the Central American nation after a business trip in Panama.
