Although this article is now 3 weeks old, we publish it here because it provides in one place a good summary of the attacks of the Ortega regime against the Catholic Church
Release from prison and banishment: the repressive pattern executed by the Ortega dictatorship in Nicaragua
In La Prensa, Oct 21, 2023
The dictatorship has caused the fact that 91 religious, among them the Apostolic Nuncio, a bishop, 78 priests, 8 seminarians and 3 deacons are outside of Nicaragua. Human rights defenders reproach the “perverse method.”
The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo so far this year has resorted for the second time to the measure of releasing from prison and banishing from the country people who it held as political prisoners, as a new repressive pattern in its quest that no dissident voice remain in the national territory.
The method, described by human rights defenders as “perverse”, adds to the expulsions, prohibitions to enter Nicaragua and forced exile which hundreds of fellow citizens have suffered, including priests.
”A perverse practice is being continued, because the greatest impact of the banishment we knew was the 222 people [released in Feb] and the 94 additional ones which were made known in the following days. Individually, little by little a policy of banishment has been developing, of blocking your return and forcing you into exile,” mentioned to La Prensa the human rights defense lawyer, Gonzalo Carrión, from the Colectivo de Derechos Humanos Nicaragua Nunca Más.
The legal expert and human rights specialist, Uriel Pineda, denounced that the regime without a doubt wants to threaten the population, and on the other hand the banishment stems from “a forced displacement, without an existing legal framework because they have taken people and expelled them from the country, which is incompatible with International Law by prohibiting and compelling a person from being in the place that they legally have a right to be. If you are a Nicaraguan, you have the right to be in Nicaragua.”
On February 9th of this year [2023], for the first time the regime released from prison and banished 222 former political prisoners to the United State, whom they accused of “traitors of the fatherland”, and stripped them of their nationality, among them were former presidential candidates, activists, business leaders, human rights defenders, priests, among others.
The second group that was banished was the group of 12 priests of the Catholic Church who were sent to Rome. It is worth noting that most of the priests had referred in their homilies to Mons. Rolando Álvarez, the only bishop converted into a political prisoner and hostage of Ortega.
It raises concern
The human rights defenders are extremely concerned that the release from prison and later banishment might become a practice of Ortega, and that consequently might continue causing more Nicaraguans to have to abandon not only the country, but their families, homes and lives.
Carrión pointed out that even though the banishment has been under development in recent years since the explosion of the social and political crisis in April 2018, the onslaught of the Ortega dictatorship against the Catholic Church of the country and religious liberty “has intensified with everyone, priests and laypeople included, this shows the state of terror which the regime has imposed.”
Then he warned that the release from prison and banishments “should be concerning to everyone, because of the atrocity which it represents. Most Nicaraguans have suffered severe attacks against their life projects, the surveillance machinery has led to refining the repressive methods which the dictatorship uses in a perverse way.”
For her part, Tamara Taraciuk Broner, director of the Program on the Rule of Law of the Interamerican Dialogue, said that even though the release from prison of political prisoners causes relief because there are less people experiencing that hell, “it is concerning that the Ortega-Murillo regime is acting with total impunity, because these liberations happen after forced exile. The audacity is absolute and requires much more international attention than what the situation in Nicaragua is receiving now.”
The lawyer Pineda pointed out that without a doubt this is an object of principal concern due to the fact that by being an action carried out as a State policy “we are talking about crimes against humanity, which are not limited to the murders committed in April 2018, but the fact that the police state which the regime implemented, with the unjustified jailing and banishment, they continue constituting crimes against humanity, this should alert the international community.”
91 religious outside of Nicaragua
Martha Patricia Molina, lawyer and author of the report Nicaragua A Persecuted Church? declared to this newspaper that what is experienced in Nicaragua represents “a serious blow to the Catholic Church, because it is leaving the country without people who have been trained to exercise the priestly ministry or deaconate. I know of at least three priests who were on a mission and now cannot return, because there is a prohibition and a danger if they return.”
A count done by La Prensa based on reports on social networks and data reported in the chronicle of Molina, shows that currently 91 religious – including bishops, priests, deacons and seminarians – are outside of Nicaragua. Among the principal causes are banishment, blocking their return, exile and expulsion.
Between February and October of this year [2023] a total of 17 Nicaraguan priests have been forced into banishment on the part of the Ortega dictatorship. The first group of five priests happened on February 9 when the group of 222 political prisoners were displaced to the United States, and the most recent one of 12 priests to Rome. It is worth noting that in the first group there were two seminarians and one deacon.
23 priests and one seminarian were denied entry to the country. The most recent case was that of Fr. Mauricio Valdivia Prado, rector and director of the Calasanz School of Managua, who was denied entry to the country when he was returning from the Dominican Republic in September. Just in 2023 a total of 13 priests have been prohibited from returning.
Likewise, 34 Nicaraguan priests were forced to go into exile for the purpose of protecting their physical integrity; Fr. Harving Padilla, from the San Juan Bautista parish in the city of Masaya, went into exile at the beginning of October after remaining detained in the Greater Archdiocesan Seminary La Purísima in Managua close to a year and a half. At least 18 priests went into exile this year.
Likewise five foreign priests and the Apostolic Nuncio were expelled from Nicaragua between July 2018 and October 2023. Three of those priests were expelled in 2023.