The Nicaraguan police reported this Thursday that he arrested a priest in “suspicious attitude” on a highway in the north of the country and said that he investigate for charges against “the independence, sovereignty, and self-determination of the nation.”
The arrested priest Jaime Ivan Montesinos Sauceda61, is the parish priest of the “Juan Pablo Segundo” Church in Sébaco, department of Matagalpa, a diocese that was administered until last year by Bishop Rolando Álvarez.
In February, a court sentenced Bishop Álvarez to 26 years in prison, a day after he refused to go to the United States with 222 other opponents released and expelled from the country by the government of Daniel Ortega.
The man “was in a suspicious attitude, drunk and in the company of a young woman” in a van parked on the highway of the neighboring department of Boaco, last Tuesday, according to an official press release.
The National Police is investigating the priest Jaime Iván Montesinos Sauceda, for committing acts that undermine the independence, sovereignty, and self-determination of the nation” according to Law 1055, added the note without giving details.
The diocese of Estelí, also in the north, said this week that by police measure, two other priests were in a religious house in Managua “while a period of investigation into administrative matters of the extinct Caritas Diocesana” closed in 2022.
Nicaragua tightened its laws and controls over opponents after the 2018 protests against the Ortega government, in power since 2007 and reelected successively in elections disputed by the opposition.
International organizations have denounced the Ortega government for its measures against opponents, among which are expatriations, stripping leaders of their nationality, preventing critics from entering, and outlawing thousands of private and religious organizations.
United States and the European Union maintain sanctions against the Nicaraguan government.
The 2018 protests lasted for at least three months in different areas of Nicaragua, with roadblocks, as well as clashes between opposition and pro-government protesters that left more than 300 dead, according to the UN.
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The government viewed the protests as a Coup attempt promoted by the United States, while international organizations accused the government of promoting a repression against the opposition.
With information from AFP
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