In a context in which the regime of Daniel Ortega continues to violate the human rights of Nicaraguans, the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Monsignor Silvio José Báez, pointed out that “whoever represses or imprisons to silence those who are uncomfortable because of their way of thinking, it is an enemy of life.”
“The world is not built by eliminating those who do not think like us. We must always put first the value of respect for others and love beyond all differences. The solution to social problems is not to eliminate those who are different“, remarked Báez during the homily he gave this Sunday in the Santa Agatha parish, located in Florida, United States.
The religious stressed that in “a healthy society all voices must resonate” and “nono one should be silenced for thinking differently from the rest of the people”.
In addition, he advocated that society not get used to remaining suppressed and silenced, encouraging them to “fight so that in our hearts, in our words and also in social institutions, there is no room for intolerance”.
Repression Persists in Nicaragua
Báez’s message comes in a month in which the Ortega-Murillo regime has given Nicaraguans no respite, according to a report on human rights violations by the Blue and White Monitoring, which indicates that in the first three weeks of June 31 new incidents were recorded.
In these three weeks, between May 30 and June 19, the report details what was documented: torture and cruel treatment (9), threats (4), prosecutions (4), harassment (3), aggressions (3) , arrests (2), raids (1), disappearance (1), injury (1), death (1) and others (10).
In addition, it reveals that the regime for three consecutive weeks ordered 317 cancellations of legal status of non-profit organizations.
Between the end of 2018 and the middle of 2022, a total of 669 associations, foundations and civil society organizations, national and international, have been canceled by the Ortega-Murillo regime, according to a count and data analysis carried out by CONFIDENTIAL.
On June 24, the Ortega Murillo regime introduced, through the Ortega deputy Filiberto Rodríguez, a new bill to cancel the legal status of 101 civil organizations, which, if approved, would add a total of 770 NGOs illegalized since November 2018.
In addition to these massive cancellations, the regime keeps more than 180 people imprisoned for political reasons in the country. On June 2, the priest Manuel Salvador García, from the Jesús de Nazareno church -also known as El Calvario- in Nandaime, Granada, became the first religious imprisoned by the regime. On June 22 last, the religious was sentenced to two years in prison for the alleged crime of threatening with weapons against five people.
