2023-12-30 19:48:37
Six Catholic priests were arrested in Nicaragua between Friday December 29 and Saturday December 30, bringing to eleven the number of clergy arrested since December 20, including a bishop, according to the press and the Nicaraguan opposition in exile. Among the latest detainees are Monsignor Silvio Fonseca, vicar for the family of the archdiocese of Managua, Miguel Mantica, of the San Francisco church, also in the capital, and Marcos Diaz, of the diocese of Leon (Northwest), according to these sources.
Priests Gerardo Rodriguez, Mykel Monterrey and Raul Zamora, who provide religious services in churches in Managua, are also on the list, according to Nicaraguan media published in Costa Rica.
These arrests follow those of Bishop Isidoro Mora and two seminarians on December 20, followed, the following week, by those of the Vicar General of Managua Carlos Aviles and the priests Hector Treminio, Fernando Calero and Pablo Villafranca. The Nicaraguan police have not yet reacted.
Media such as The Press, Confidential et 100% Newspublished in Costa Rica, cited ecclesiastical sources, lawyers Martha Molina and Yonarqui Martinez and human rights activist Haydée Castillo, all in exile, in their denunciation.
Between Nicaragua and the Vatican, the link is broken
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Thursday condemned the “enforced disappearance” for more than a week in Nicaragua of Bishop Isidoro Mora, as well as a “new wave of arrests of religious people” Catholics. “In addition to an attack on individual freedom, this violates freedom of religion, the pillar of any democratic state”had underlined the office for Central America and the Caribbean of this UN agency, on the social network X.
Mgr Mora, 53, bishop of Sinua, is the second bishop arrested following that of Matagalpa, Mgr Rolando Alvarez, 57, to whom he had given his support. Detained since August 2022, Mgr Alvarez was sentenced, on February 10, to twenty-six years and four months of detention for “conspiracy and dissemination of false news”. He had just refused to leave for the United States with 222 political prisoners who had been expelled and stripped of their Nicaraguan nationality.
The president, Daniel Ortega, a former guerrilla in power since 2007, is in conflict with the Catholic Church. The Vatican closed its embassy in March and Pope Francis called it “gross dictatorship” the government of Mr. Ortega.
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