Daniel Ortega’s regime allowed cameraman Flavio Castro and chorister Henry Corvera to leave the Episcopal Curia of Matagalpa on Tuesday, August 15, where Bishop Rolando Álvarez and eight people still remain under police siege, completing 14 days of “kidnapping.” confirmed various sources consulted by CONFIDENTIAL.
The conditions of the departure of the laity are unknown, who are the second that the regime Police admits to being evacuated since last Thursday, August 4, they locked up the group made up of six priests, two seminarians, two choristers and two cameramen, led by Monsignor Álvarez, head of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí.
On August 8, the chorus girl Sujin Membreño was the first to leave the Curia. Various sources consulted reported that the management was directly with her family, mainly with her sister, Bianka Hernández, who identifies herself as a member of the Sandinista Youth according to her Facebook posts.
Hernández confirmed that the showgirl was at home and thanked the police for “taking care of her” and the “good management of our government,” she wrote in a publication, which was later deleted.
With the departure of Castro and Corvera, nine people remain in the Curia: the priests José Luis Díaz and Sadiel Eugarrios, first and second vicar of the San Pedro Cathedral, respectively; Óscar Escoto, parish priest of the Santa María de Guadalupe church; Ramiro Tijerino, rector of the John Paul II University and in charge of the San Juan Bautista parish; and Raul Gonzalez.
There are also the seminarians Darvin Leyva and Melkin Sequeira, the cameraman Sergio Cárdenas and Monsignor Álvarez. The police justification of the house for jail imposed is an investigation for allegedly “organize violent groups” and “foster hatred”.
More repression against the Catholic Church
While the Police allowed the laity to leave the Curia in the city of Matagalpa, very early this August 15, they attacked the SSanta Lucía, in Ciudad Darío, also belonging to the Diocese of Matagalpa.
The Police prevented the faithful from entering the Catholic temple and the priest Sebastián López celebrated Mass in the atrium of the Church, while the faithful participated in the Eucharist from the street, guarded by riot police.
Likewise, the Police have not reported the reasons for the arrest. of the priest of the Holy Spirit parish, Oscar Benavidez Davilacaptured last Sunday in Mulukukú, in the North Caribbean, becoming the third religious that Daniel Ortega’s regime has imprisoned in the country since last June.
Cetcam: Critical Clerics Are Silenced, Imprisoned or Banished in Nicaragua
Silence, jail or exile is what the Ortega government offers to the priests of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church with whom it is confronted, according to an analysis by the Center for Transdisciplinary Studies of Central America (Cetcam).
“The confrontation between the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo with the Catholic Church is reaching one of its most critical points and it wants to force them to take one of three paths: silence in the face of the situation in the country, prison or exile in the in case they do not accept lowering their heads”, valued Cetcam, a think tank made up of Central American researchers from different disciplines, in a report.
That center noted that, as a result of the expulsion of the Vatican representative in Nicaragua, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, last March, “attacks and persecution against religious have increased,” and the latest case is the confinement to which Bishop Rolando Álvarez has been subdued – whom I also want to force into exile, but he has resisted.
“The level of pressure and political violence has led several religious to jail, forced silence and exile,” according to the Cetcam analysis, entitled “Without God and without law.”
In addition to the expulsion of the apostolic nuncio, a group of priests, including the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, and Father Edwin Román, have been “forced to leave the country in 2019 and 2021, respectively, just like the recently expelled Missionaries of Charity order Mother Teresa of Calcutta, noted that group.
Bishop Báez, separately, condemned the “cobarde and vile persecution of the Nicaraguan dictatorship against the Catholic Church” and called on the world to turn its eyes towards Nicaragua.
“We need the prayer, closeness and denunciation of the entire Church. I beg you from the bottom of my heart: Do not abandon us! ”, She expressed through her Twitter account.
I condemn the cowardly and vile persecution of the Nicaraguan dictatorship against the Catholic Church. The Church of the whole world must turn its eyes towards my country. We need the prayer, closeness and denunciation of the whole Church. I beg you from the bottom of my heart: Do not abandon us!
– Silvio José Báez (@silviojbaez) August 16, 2022
The frontal battle of the Ortega regime against the Catholic Church has unleashed a wave of rejection at the national and international level, both by religious and secular institutions that question the violation of religious freedom. This August 15, a group of citizens protested at the Nicaraguan embassy in Mexico demanding that respect for human rights prevail in the country and an end to the persecution of the Church and priests.
For Cetcam, “although it may seem crazy or irrational, this escalation of confrontation by the Ortega-Murillos against the Church actually corresponds to their strategy of institutionalizing the police state over Nicaragua and this happens by silencing all voices. critical or non-subordinate that exist”.
“Hence, the Church and particularly certain religious leaders are seen by Ortega and Murillo as “enemies” that make it difficult to impose their dominant power,” he considered.
