The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) demands to know the state of the Bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, as well as the priests Manuel Salvador García and Leonardo Urbina, imprisoned by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship.
«The war against the Catholic Church and its priests continues, we demand to know how Monsignor Rolando Álvarez is in the Jorge Navarro prison (known as La Modelo). Has his family been able to see him? Has he received his parcel? And the priests Manuel Salvador García and Leonardo Urbina are also imprisoned in La Modelo. How are they? We demand their immediate release and the more than 30 prisoners of conscience in Nicaragua,” the defense organization said through its social networks.
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On February 9, after six months of house arrest, the Bishop of Matagalpa refused to be banished from Nicaragua and in revenge the regime decided to lock him up in the penitentiary system where he was sent to a punishment cell where temperatures can exceed 40 degrees, as denounced by the Center for Inter-American Legal Assistance in Human Rights (Calidh).
For its part, Cenidh has denounced that the imprisonment of the hierarch puts “his personal integrity and his life at risk” and asked “that he be released” because they consider that “he is innocent.”
On February 10, Bishop Álvarez was found guilty in an express summary trial in which the sentence of 26 years in prison was also handed down. In addition, the regime took away his Nicaraguan nationality. The court ordered the payment of 56,461.15 córdobas corresponding to 800 days of fine. The religious was violently arrested on August 19, 2021 in the Matagalpa Episcopal Curia, from that date until February 9, 2023 he remained under house arrest.
Father Manuel Salvador García, parish priest of the Jesús de Nazareno church, in the municipality of Nandaime in the Diocese of Granada, was the first priest to be arrested by the regime. The religious was apprehended on June 1, 2021.
Monsignor Leonardo Urbina Rodríguez, parish priest of the Church of Perpetual Help in Boaco, was arrested on July 13 in his city. At that time, he was the second religious arrested. The regime sentenced him to 30 years in prison for the alleged crime of raping a minor under 14 years of age and minor psychological injuries to the detriment of the 12-year-old victim of initials MJVS.
A large number of priests have decided to go into exile due to the threats and persecution imposed by the Ortega-Murillo regime on Catholic religious. Bishops from all over the world and human rights defenders have denounced these abuses against the church and demand the release of those who are still hostages of the dictatorship.
