The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) ruled in rejection of the judicial process ordered against the bishop of Matagalpa and administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, scheduled for this Tuesday, January 10. The regime’s justice will prosecute him criminally for the alleged crimes of undermining national integrity and the alleged spread of false news.
“Tomorrow the Ortega Murillo regime will hold an initial hearing against Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, we demand that this arbitrary accusation be declared inadmissible and that he be released immediately,” details the defense organization that has repeatedly denounced the situation in which he finds himself. subjected to the religious who is recognized as one of the most critical voices against the dictatorship of Nicaragua.
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“Although the Ortega-Murillo regime wants to strip him of his investiture, the image of the priest consistent and committed to his people, with his cassock, his rosary and his pastoral message, remains intact in the world imagination; exemplary symbol of Christian resistance to a tyranny, the worst in recent history,” Cenidh recently stressed.
After more than four months in captivity, on December 13, 2021, the dictatorship presented Monsignor Rolando Álvarez in the Managua courts. The photographs disseminated by the propaganda media show the priest in a blue guayabera and without his bishop’s cassock; his face looks haggard.
Given this, the human rights organization stressed that it was “painful to see that our fears and some statements that reported a precarious health situation were confirmed; Seeing him in such poor physical condition shows that his health and life are in danger. Once again we cry for help for Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, his face is not the same as all of Nicaragua knows. What have they done to him? Have you been physically tortured? And where is he serving the so-called house arrest?», questions Cenidh.
Some 15 priests, lay people, seminarians, journalists from Diocese Media and Bishop Rolando Álvarez are part of the more than 230 political prisoners of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Most are accused of crimes under the Law of Sovereignty and the Special Law on Cybercrimes, two legal instruments invented to imprison opponents and religious.
In this process, Cenidh demands that the monsignor be at least guaranteed “his intervention and due defense from the beginning of the process or procedure and to have adequate time and means for his defense. The defendant has the right to communicate freely and privately with his defense attorney. We demand the immediate release of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, the first bishop of the Catholic Church who became a prisoner of conscience and freedom for all political prisoners,” the organization concludes.
