New wave of arrests against Catholic religious in Nicaragua

On Thursday and Friday, Nicaraguan police carried out operations in parishes in the dioceses of Matagalpa and also in Estelí (north). President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, maintain that the Church supported the 2018 protests against the government that left more than 300 dead.

At least 12 priests have been arrested in recent days in a new wave of arrests against Catholic Church priests in Nicaragua, a human rights NGO working from exile in Costa Rica reported on Saturday. “In the last 48 hours there has been an escalation of repression against Catholic Church priests” in the department of Matagalpa, in the north of the country, the Nicaragua Never Again Collective said in a statement. “Several parishes have been besieged and at least 12 priests arbitrarily detained, some of them whose whereabouts are unknown and in a situation of forced disappearance,” the organization said.

On Thursday and Friday, Nicaraguan police carried out operations in parishes in the dioceses of Matagalpa and also Estelí (north), “The lawyer and researcher on church issues, Martha Patricia Molina, exiled in the United States, said on the social network X. The Nicaraguan human rights activist Haydee Castillo, also exiled in the United States, said on X that “last night Matagalpa was besieged by police and paramilitary forces.”

The Nicaraguan government has not commented on this information. President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, They say the Church supported anti-government protests in 2018 that left more than 300 dead, according to the UN, and which Managua considers a coup attempt sponsored by Washington. Murillo has described religious people as “children of the devil” or “agents of evil” who commit “spiritual terrorism.”

Last January, thirty religious were released from prison and sent to the Vatican. A week ago, a group of United Nations experts denounced that The Nicaraguan government maintains “systematic” attacks against the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations since the 2018 protests.

From April 2018 to March 2024, that group noted “73 cases of arbitrary detentions of members of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations,” although he said that “the total figure could be higher.”