At least 40 days have passed since the Bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, was transferred to the National Penitentiary System (SPN), known as “La Modelo”. Since then, his state of health is unknown. Human rights organizations and lawyers have affirmed that the Catholic leader is subjected to a “forced disappearance” by the Ortega dictatorship.
The lawyer Yader Morazán, a former official of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) and an expert in the administration of justice, assures that the Judiciary is responsible for the “disappearance” of the cardinal. Monsignor Álvarez was transferred from his family home in Managua to the jail for common prisoners of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
«The Judiciary is legally responsible for the condition of Forced Disappearance (crime against humanity) of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez. This, regardless of the fact that at the beginning they admitted that he was in police custody and then in charge of the Penitentiary System, “Morazán wrote on his Twitter account.
According to the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, enforced disappearances occur whenever “persons are arrested, detained or transferred against their will, or are deprived of their freedom in any other way by government agents of any sector or level, by organized groups or by individuals acting on behalf of the Government or with its direct or indirect support, authorization or assent, and who then refuse to disclose the fate or whereabouts of these persons or to acknowledge that they are deprived of their liberty, thus removing them from the protection of the law”.
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The UN explains that, when a forced disappearance occurs, the following civil and political rights of people subjected to this situation can be violated: right to recognition of legal personality; right to personal liberty and security; right not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
In addition, the right to life, in the event of the death of the disappeared person: right to an identity; right to a fair trial and due judicial guarantees; right to an effective remedy, with reparation and compensation and the right to know the truth about the circumstances of the disappearance.
seven months detained
The bishop has been detained for seven months since he was forcibly taken and kidnapped from the Episcopal Palace of the Diocese of Matagalpa, from where he was violently removed at dawn on August 19, 2022. 15 days ago he was already besieged without the possibility of going out to carry out their pastoral duties.
At the beginning of February the regime tried to banish him from Nicaragua by sending him on a plane to the United States, but the prelate ruined the plan of the dictatorial couple and refused to board the flight.
His sister has asked the regime’s justice to allow her to see her relative, but everything has been useless. She does not know where and how she is. The prelate is part of the group of more than 30 political prisoners that the dictatorship maintains in its jails, most of them are confined in “La Modelo” in Tipitapa.
After resisting being banished, the bishop was taken to the Courts of Managua where he was subjected to an express summary trial. That same day, February 10, he was found guilty, sentenced to 26 years in prison, stripped of his nationality, and stripped of his civil and political rights for life.
