Within the framework of March 24, Day of Memory for Truth and Justice, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) demanded truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition for the victims of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. In addition, he demanded an end to religious persecution against the civilian population and the Catholic Church.
In a video released on its social networks, the human rights organization demanded the immediate release of the Bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, a conscience hostage of the Nicaraguan regime for more than seven months.
“Today the UN pays tribute to San Óscar Romero de América, assassinated on March 24, 1980 and who actively denounced the human rights violations perpetrated against the Salvadoran people,” Cenidh recalled on this date.
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The human rights organization launched a “cry for help” for Monsignor Rolando Álvarez Lagos because, according to Cenidh, like San Óscar Romero, the Bishop of Matagalpa has also denounced the “crimes against his people and that is why the regime keeps him in a situation of forced disappearance for more than 40 days. His life is at risk.”
The Bishop of Matagalpa has more than seven months since he was taken by force and kidnapped from the Episcopal Palace of the Diocese of Matagalpa, from where he was violently taken on the morning of August 19, 2022. For 15 days he had already been under siege without possibility of going out to their pastoral work.
The Nicaraguan regime has kept Bishop Álvarez in prison since February 9, when he refused to be exiled to the United States. That day Ortega sent 222 political prisoners on a plane. In addition, he took away their Nicaraguan nationality.
After resisting being banished, the bishop was taken to the Courts of Managua where he was subjected to an express summary trial. That same day, February 10, he was found guilty, sentenced to 26 years in prison, stripped of his nationality, and stripped of his civil and political rights for life.
