Social organizations launched an alert for the Nicaraguan bishop Rolando Álvarez, critic of the government of Daniel Ortega and sentenced to more than 26 years in prison, for allegedly being isolated in a maximum security cell, known as El Infiernillo, in Managua.
Edwin Román, a Nicaraguan priest in exile in the United States, told the voice of america there is “anxiety in all Catholics” due to the condition of the bishop, although he stressed that even though he is imprisoned “his silence is speaking.”
“The very fact of having him imprisoned is telling us a lot. He has been very faithful from the beginning when he said he was not going to leave his country and I think he is obedient to his principles, not declining his position, and that is why they have been merciless with him and with the Church itself”, declared the priest.
The cell El Infiernillo where Álvarez has allegedly been for more than 100 days, is intended for people who are punished, according to testimonies from former politicians.
Yader Valdivia, lawyer for the human rights group Nicaragua Nunca Más, points out that the current detention of Bishop Álvarez in the penitentiary system and the condition in which he is punished, “is the result of a series of violations of due process.”
Among the anomalies, according to Valdivia, is that the trial against the Catholic hierarch was scheduled on a date, then it was brought forward in February (2023), but without the hearing being held, he was found guilty of the crimes he was charged with, and stripped him of his nationality.
Sent to jail for not going to the US
Bishop Álvarez was transferred from his residence, where he was kept in house arrest, to the National Penitentiary System, known as the Nicaraguan model prison, on February 9. His transfer, according to what Ortega said on national television, was due to his refusing to be sent by plane to the United States, as happened with 222 political prisoners.
“I don’t know what this man (Álvarez) thinks, that in the face of a decision by the Nicaraguan State, he says that he does not abide by, a resolution of a State power that is ordering him to leave the country, that is why he is in the Modelo prison” Ortega said.
That speech, according to the priest Edwin Román, points to “a contraction” to the official speech of Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo.
“There is a contradiction in the speech they give. They talk about peace, love, Christianity, but that does not exist for them. You will know them by their fruits and they have time to repent, and to show repentance. I hope they have time to convert and to show his conversion”.
A recent report of the State Department published in mid-May ruled that the Nicaraguan government “intensified its campaign against the Catholic Church.”
According to the report, although the Nicaraguan Constitution prohibits discrimination based on religion, “throughout the year, President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo ordered the arrest, exile, and verbal attacks against priests and bishops, calling them criminals and coup plotters”.
Lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, quoted in said report, told the VOA that the justice system in Nicaragua responds to what the presidential couple Ortega-Murillo guides. “They do not adhere to the rule of law, they do not follow what is established by the Political Constitution and the laws,” he explained.
In his opinion, Bishop Rolando Álvarez “continues under the criminal figure of kidnapping because the guarantees of due process established in the Political Constitution of Nicaragua and in the country’s criminal laws were never respected.”
“He was arbitrarily abducted from his home while he was praying and without having committed any crime,” lamented Molina, adding to the date “no one knows where he is kidnapped due to the secrecy of the regime.”
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