Police patrols with at least five troops, in collusion with people dressed in civilian clothes, are outside the San Juan Bautista church in Masaya this Sunday, May 15, the priest denounced. Harvin Padillawhose religious community does not rule out the arbitrary arrest of the parish priest.
«I do not see the reason for this intimidation and persecution that I am experiencing since we are in a country that has “freedom”. I would like to know why they are there and why a paramilitary, since yesterday, has been guarding the church if what is done here is to celebrate holy mass and pastoral training,” the Catholic leader told Article 66.
The harassment was recorded from Saturday, May 14, when a man, who apparently was traveling on a motorcycle, remained for hours spying on the temple.
The opposition and former political prisoner from Masaya Yubrank Suazo said that, “since the early hours of today (Saturday), the subject of unknown identity has been watching the San Juan Bautista de Masaya parish temple and asking in the neighborhood the times of mass and movements of the priest Harving Padilla».
“We denounce these acts of intimidation to the Church and our pastors. We pray for those who persecute us. Our trust is placed in God », he added.
Father Padilla also denounced, through his WhatsApp, that “this person has been surrounding the church all day, asking about my hours of mass and what time I leave. I put it in my state so that the parishioners know of the harassment that is experienced in the parish.
The harassment increased this day with more vigilantes surrounding the Church and the María Auxiliadora chapel, said the religious leader. “At the moment I have a patrol and paramilitaries in charge of the church, according to what parishioners inform me,” the father told this medium.
The situation occurs days after the National Assembly, controlled by the government party, launched the threat of prosecuting priests. The deputies approved a report in which supporters of the dictatorial couple, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, asked to judge the religious leaders and confiscate their assets for having helped the victims of the 2018 repression, whom the regime calls “terrorists.” .
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It is not the first time that the Police and paramilitaries have besieged this religious temple and its parish priest, Harvin Padilla. In July 2018, supporters of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, including teachers from public schools, arrived surrounded by police officers and tried to enter the church.
Later, on November 21, 2019, another mobile mob tried again to desecrate that church when the parish priest Harvin Padilla was preparing to celebrate mass and then go out in procession to the San Miguel Arcángel de Masaya Church, which at that time was surrounded by officers. .
The priest has been the target of defamation and attacks from the Presidency and supporters of the Sandinista Front since the social protests of 2018. Murillo and his followers have come to accuse, without evidence, that the religious leader participated in the murder of a policeman in Masaya, department that long resisted brutal government repression. The regime accuses bishops and priests of the Catholic Church of being “accomplices of terrorists.”
