The Nicaraguan Police imposed house arrest on Friday on the bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, and sent several of his collaborators to a police prison after accusing him of inciting hatred and organizing violent groups. The arrests are the culmination of weeks of growing tension between the Catholic Church and the government of Daniel Ortega.
In a statement, the police reported that they carried out an operation in the Episcopal Curia of Matagalpa, in the north of the country, and transferred Álvarez and his companions to Managua to carry out “legal inquiries.” He did not specify how many other detainees were or give details of their identity.
“The Lord Bishop remains in house protection in this capital city,” the document added. The other people “continue to carry out the respective proceedings in the Directorate of Judicial Assistance”, known as the El Chipote prison, where several leaders opposed to the Ortega government are being held.
According to the local press, Álvarez’s group of collaborators is made up of four priests, two seminarians and a cameraman.
Álvarez and his relatives remained for 15 days in the Matagalpa Curia surrounded by police officers and patrols, which announced that they were investigating the bishop for “inciting hatred” and “organizing violent groups.”
The police argued that they waited for days for a “positive communication from the Bishopric of Matagalpa, which never materialized.” According to the report, the operation was carried out because “destabilizing and provocative activities” by the religious persisted.
The statement assured that Monsignor Álvarez has met with relatives and was visited by the cardinal and vice president of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, Leopoldo Brenes, and that in the Curia of Matagalpa remains “without any police or mobility restrictions” the vicar Monsignor Oscar Scotus.
“While his physical condition is deteriorating, his spirits and spirits are strong,” the statement said.
Early on Friday, the Diocese of Matagalpa published the message on social media: “#SOS #Urgent. At this time the National Police has entered the Episcopal Curia of our Diocese of Matagalpa”.
In a Twitter message, “with an indignant and hurt heart,” the exiled auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, condemned Álvarez’s “night kidnapping” and demanded information about his whereabouts.
“Those who know, tell where my brother bishop is! May his kidnappers respect his dignity and release him! Once again, the dictatorship once again overcomes its own evil and its diabolical spirit,” wrote Monsignor Báez, whom the Vatican withdrew from Nicaragua in 2019.
The arrest of the prelate also deserved a condemnation from the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, as well as from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which demanded that the Nicaraguan government his “immediate release” and guarantee “his life and personal integrity”.
Almagro also demanded on his Twitter account the immediate release of all “political prisoners.”
For his part, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, “is very concerned about the serious obstruction of democratic and civic space in Nicaragua and about the recent actions against civil society organizations, including those of the Catholic Church,” spokesman Farhan Hag told a news conference.
Several episcopal conferences in Latin America, including Costa Rica and Peru, expressed their solidarity with Bishop Álvarez and other detained religious, the people and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church. “Violence has never built, it has only sown the seeds of poverty and hatred,” said the Peruvian Episcopal Conference in a letter sent to the president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference, Monsignor Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez.
The Costa Rican bishops called for “respect for religious freedom, the dignity of people and the mission of the Church carried out in Nicaragua by lay faithful, men and women religious, priests and bishops.”
The Ortega government has systematically persecuted dissenting voices. Dozens of opposition political leaders were arrested last year, including seven potential candidates to challenge him for the presidency, and were sentenced to prison in speedy trials closed to the public.
In turn, Congress, dominated by the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, ordered the closure of more than 1,000 non-governmental organizations, including the Mother Teresa charity.
In a video message, Pablo Cuevas, a lawyer for the non-governmental Permanent Human Rights Committee, condemned Álvarez’s arrest but said it was not unexpected. “What was obviously going to happen has happened, the arbitrary and abusive detention of Monsignor Álvarez,” he said.
Edwin Román, a Nicaraguan priest exiled in the United States, tweeted: “MY GOD! What a barbarity, they have taken Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, with the priests who were with him”.
Álvarez has been a key voice in discussions about the future of Nicaragua since 2018, when a wave of protests against the Ortega government led to a repression that left 355 dead, more than 2,000 injured and at least 100,000 exiled, according to organizations. of human rights.
According to Ortega, the social revolt was a “failed coup d’état” with foreign support and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church. The opposition maintains that there are at least 190 “political prisoners” in the country, but Ortega assures that they are “criminals and terrorists.”
A month after the outbreak of the protests Álvarez called for electoral reforms that would guarantee free, fair and transparent elections with international observation.
The bishop has kept up those calls for democracy for the past four years, angering Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.
Previously, the government had closed eight radio stations and a television channel in the province of Matagalpa, 130 kilometers north of Managua. Seven of the stations were managed by the Catholic Church.
Days ago the Archdiocese of Managua expressed its support for Álvarez. The Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) denounced what it called a “siege” against priests and bishops, the expulsion of members of religious communities and the “constant harassment” of the Nicaraguan people and Church.
However, the Vatican remained publicly silent for nearly two weeks, drawing criticism from Latin American intellectuals and human rights activists.
Last Friday, Monsignor Juan Antonio Cruz, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the Organization of American States, expressed his concern about the situation and asked the parties to “seek ways of understanding.”
The president of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, Monsignor Carlos Herrera, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ortega has had a complicated relationship with Nicaragua’s predominant religion and its leaders for more than four decades. The former Marxist guerrilla infuriated the Vatican in the 1980s but gradually forged an alliance with the Church as he tried to regain the presidency in 2007 after a long spell out of power.
He initially invited the Church to mediate talks with protesters in 2018, but has since taken a more aggressive stance.
Days before last year’s presidential elections -in which he won a fourth consecutive term while his strongest opponents were imprisoned-, he accused the bishops of having drawn up a political proposal in 2018 “at the service of the Yankees” and considered that the prelates were “terrorists.”
In March, Nicaragua expelled the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s top diplomat in the country.
