Daniel Ortega Police Arrest Rolando Alvarez, Nicaragua’s Most Critical Bishop | international

At about 3:40 this Friday, while Matagalpa (the seventh city in the country, center) was asleep, a convoy of Special Forces from the Police Daniel Ortega And Rosario Murillo took Rolando Alvarez, the bishop most critical of the regime in Nicaragua. after, after 15 days of siege and police harassment To Korea, where the devout was in captivity with eight priests and collaborators, he was arrested, representing one of the hardest blows of the Sandinista regime in religious persecution It asserts against Catholicism, and is highly critical of human rights violations.

“Urgent. At this time, the National Police has entered the Episcopal Curia of the Diocese of Matagalpa,” the diocese’s Facebook account posted at the time of the priest’s arrest. According to church and church sources from that city, 130 kilometers north of the capital, Managua, the operation was “quick” and Monsignor Alvarez was taken in a van to an unknown destination with the other priests who accompanied him. So far, it is not known whether the bishop has been transferred to a prison or will be forcibly exiled, as indicated by some Catholic sources.

According to Matagalpa’s lawyer, Yadir Morazán, “between 15 and 20 cars were deployed with the police and paramilitary forces, and they ordered the security guards of banks and businesses to hide and not see what was happening,” while they closed a grocery store. It works 24 hours.

“The law stipulates that searches must take place between six in the morning and six in the evening, and only in these two exceptional cases can they be carried out at another time: with the consent of the owner of the house or in a very serious and urgent case according to Article 217 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Monsignor Alvarez Under your control for more than 15 days, where is the urgency or the seriousness? “

The last tweet of the Bishop of Matagalpa was posted on his official account around 00:36. “Let us worry about wearing the party dress in the kingdom of God,” she said. Police action against the religious began on the fourth day, after a group of police prevented the celebration of morning mass at the Cathedral of San Pedro Apostol in Matagalpa, before the bishop went out to pray with the Eucharist aloft, then turned around. And his back on the customers to kneel and scream to God.

On the fifth day, the Ortega and Murillo police opened an investigation against Rolando Alvarez, allegedly for “attempting to organize violent groups and carry out acts of hate against the population”.

According to the police, the bishop as head of the supreme authorities of the Catholic Church and “exploits their position as religious leaders, using the media and social networks, trying to organize violent groups, inciting them to carry out acts of hatred against the population … with the aim of destabilizing the Nicaraguan State and attacking the constitutional authorities.”

From that day onwards, the system Ortega and Murillo The police intensified their siege at Alvarez’s home and the streets near Korea, which continued until this morning’s kidnapping by dozens of heavily armed agents from the Directorate of Special Operations (DOEP).

In order to withstand the 15-day siege, Monsignor Alvarez and his companions had to ration the food the bishop kept in his cupboard, because the Sandinista did not allow food or medicine to enter the religious’s home. The siege against the bishop is directed by Commissioner Ramon Avellan, loyal to Ortega Morelos and responsible for violent operations against opponents since 2018.

“With an indignant and anguished heart, I condemn the night kidnapping of Monsignor Alvarez. Those who know, say where is my brother the Bishop! I hope his kidnappers will respect his dignity and release him! Once again, the dictatorship overcomes its evil and its demonic spirit,” via the account of Bishop Silvio Paez, the first bishop to have been Forcibly exiled by the regime, on his Twitter account.

For his part, the exiled priest Edwin Roman called Alvarez’s arrest outrageous. said the priest, whose criticism chimes with the questioning of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, who was timid denouncing the harassment of Catholicism in this Central American country.

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