The report published this March 9 by Freedom House places Nicaragua for the fifth consecutive year as a country with mutilated liberties under the intensification of the repression imposed by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
In Nicaragua, years of intensified repression against the opposition to the regime of President Daniel Ortega culminated in show trials of dozens of people accused of crimes ranging from treason to spreading false news and undermining national integrity, based almost solely on the evidence that they made critical comments about the government, such cases clearly discourage others from speaking out,” the report by the US organization refers to.
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Freedom House also highlights the arrest and conviction against the apostolic administrator of the Estelí Diocese, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, in August of last year; the arrest of other clergymen and workers from his curia constitutes a crime on the part of the dictatorship.
Monsignor Álvarez refused to be part of the group of political prisoners released and sent to the United States by the Daniel Ortega regime. Since his violent capture, on August 19, 2021, Bishop Álvarez remained in his family’s home in Managua and it is currently presumed that he is in the “La Modelo” prison system, in Tipitapa.
They also point out that the disputed municipal elections last year and the expulsion in July 2022 by the local governments of five opposition mayoralties “curtail democracy” in Nicaragua. The document also places Nicaragua among the countries without freedom worldwide.
The Ortega regime exiled 222 political prisoners last February, in addition to stripping them of their nationality and stripping them of their assets within the country. The same for another 94 citizens declared stateless, including activists, human rights defenders, religious and journalists.
International organizations have denounced this action on the part of the dictatorship, stating that nationality constitutes a non-derogable right and its arbitrary deprivation in this case is a serious violation of human rights at the international level.
