The Bishop David Jay Malloy, President of the Committee for International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) joined the demand of religious, human rights defenders and political activists for Monsignor Rolando Álvarez to be released.
“It is with dismay that we witness the continued deterioration of religious freedom and human rights in Nicaragua. On December 13, Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who had been kidnapped by the regime and isolated under house arrest without due process since August for denouncing the regime’s human rights abuses and the breakdown of democratic order in Nicaragua, was charged with attack on national integrity and the spread of false news,” recalled the priest in a letter published on the official website of USCCB.
Related news: Nicaraguan dictatorship presents Monsignor Rolando Álvarez and accuses him of two alleged crimes
Faced with the onslaught of the Ortega dictatorship against Monsignor Álvarez, Malloy called on the Government of the United States and the international community “to seek the immediate release of Bishop Álvarez.”
In turn, he demanded that religious freedom be restored “and the guarantees of human rights and begin a process of restoration of democratic order and the rule of law in Nicaragua.”
Remember the “bloody repression since 2018”
Referring to the social protests of 2018, which were repressed by the police and paramilitaries, the bishop recalled those events and described them as “bloody repression of peaceful protesters.”
He also recalled that since his predecessor, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, traveled to Nicaragua “to express our solidarity with our brother bishops and the people of Nicaragua, the regime and its allies have been implementing a policy of severe and systematic aggression and intimidation.” physical, rhetorical and institutional attacks against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua».
The prelate insisted that the authoritarian drift of dictator Daniel Ortega has led them to carry out “unjust arrests, violence,” in addition to prohibiting “priests from returning to Nicaragua, desecration of sacred images and even desecration of the Blessed Sacrament.”
The demand for freedom for the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa has become more notorious, after on Tuesday, December 13, the Prosecutor’s Office at the service of the Ortega regime officially accused the prelate for alleged crimes of impairment of national integrity and propagation of false news through information and communication technologies to the detriment of the Nicaraguan State and society.
Related news: Exiled priest urges the Church hierarchy not to leave Monsignor Álvarez “defenseless”
Álvarez, who recently turned 28 years of priestly orderis one of the most critical religious voices of the dictator Daniel Ortega, which caused him to head the “black list of religious” considered enemies of the presidential couple.
Since August 19 of this year, he was deprived of his freedom along with other priests, seminarians and a layman, who are being held at the Directorate of Judicial Assistance (DAJ) in Managua, accused, like the bishop, of the alleged crime of “undermining national integrity.”
