21 organizations opposed to the regime of Daniel Ortega, both inside and outside of Nicaragua, condemned the recent arbitrary arrest of the father Manuel Salvador Garciaparish priest of the Jesús de Nazareno church in Nandaime, also known as El Calvario.
Opponents claimed to be “outraged” at the “absurd” and violent arrest of the priest Garcia, accused by the Ortega justice of having assaulted a woman, who has assured that the prelate hit her.
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“This arrest sets a serious precedent against priests in the country and confirms that under the current political regime absolutely no one is safe,” said the organizations that signed the statement dated June 3.
They also denounced the persecution, siege and harassment that representatives of the Catholic Church have experienced in recent weeks in different departments of the country, including Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, and the priest Harving Padilla, parish priest of the San Juan, in Masaya.
They assure that what is being experienced is “the reflection of the absence of a rule of law that guarantees the effective exercise of the rights (…) to freedom of religion or belief, guaranteed by article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” .
Despite the constant attacks against the Catholic Church, opposition organizations affirm that Nicaraguan citizens “have shown that they are willing to accompany their spiritual guides through civic and religious actions that mitigate the behavior of the dictatorial regime.”
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“All these repressive acts – by the Ortega dictatorship – prevent both the pastors of the Church and their parishioners from living and celebrating their faith in an environment of peace and security and that this detention increases the number of political prisoners who the dictatorship maintains tortured in the country’s prisons and that they have been criminalized and sentenced for having opinions contrary to the official discourse, “concluded the opposition organizations.
On Thursday, June 2, the local judge of the Nandaime Courts, in the department of Granada, Jaime Aguilar Ney, issued preventive detention against the priest Manuel García, reported the official Radio Ya.
According to the propagandist station, the religious would be accused by the Prosecutor for alleged “serious injuries”, to the detriment of Martha Candelaria Rivas who has already filed a formal complaint with the Ortega Police.
Father García joins the more than 180 political prisoners held in different prisons in the country, whom the Ortega dictatorship has accused and condemned for their critical opposition to his regime.
