The National Police, controlled by the Daniel Ortega regime, blocked the four streets that converge with the San Juan Bautista de Masaya parish, led by the priest Harving Padilla, who for a week he has denounced the harassment and surveillance of Sandinista fanatics and police.
According to sources close to the priest, in the area surrounding the church there are approximately 30 officers, who set up checkpoints on every corner and prevent the population from approaching the temple. “They don’t let anyone pass. Those who live nearby have to say where they live, otherwise they won’t let them pass,” they warned.
It is known that within the parish there is the priest with his assistant and the secretary of the parish. Due to the siege they are experiencing, the father suspended “until further notice” the training meeting for “extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion”, which takes place every Saturday in the church. The father clarified that in the parish they do have electricity.
Father Harving Padilla has reported a siege to me on the outskirts of the parish. The threats of illegal detention to the priests in Masaya continue. pic.twitter.com/jveH7AZhUN
– Yonarqui Martinez G (@YonarquiM) May 21, 2022
The priest denounced the police and paramilitary siege in his parish since May 15. As he described, that day a group of uniformed men arrived in two patrols, took pictures of him during the homily and, on the way out, approached some parishioners to ask for names and addresses of their homes.
In the face of the siege and police surveillance, Father Padilla feels he has been “prisoned by a parish”, since he has no guarantees that when he leaves they will not do him any harm.
“They (police officers) say that I can go out at any time I want, but how am I going to go out being insecure, with those people there, how safe can one feel when civilians are constantly stationed there, people we know are paramilitaries? , aggressive, and to prevent them from having any confrontation with me, I prefer not to go out. I have a parish for jail”, he said this Wednesday in an interview with the program Tonight.
On May 18, in Masaya, The released political prisoner and opposition leader, Yubrank Suazo, was arrested, who denounced on his social networks the police harassment suffered by Father Padilla. The citizen leader was charged this Friday for the alleged crimes of “conspiring to undermine” against the State.
? “They returned with a greater number of patrols” denounces Father Harving Padilla, pastor of the San Juan Bautista Church in Masaya. The access streets to the parish were closed by the Police.
The bishop @DiocesedeMat it is also surrounded and under siege in Managua. pic.twitter.com/qaNNIzsHRU— Elmer Joshua Rivas (@ElmerJRivas) May 21, 2022
“Yubrank’s arrest hits me a lot because he is a young man who has been collaborating in all parish activities, he is very close to our Church, to the parishioners, as well as his family, they are well known and the situation they are going through hurts me. His mother is in a delicate condition in the hospital and the police came in attacking the young Yubrank and the family, ”said the priest.
This week at least three religious have suffered harassment from the National Police. Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and in charge of that of Estelí, he is a refugee in Managua doing a fast and prayer to ask for his rights to freedom of movement and privacy, after being harassed by officers of the National Police.
