This Friday around 3:40 a.m., when Matakalpa (the country’s seventh city, center) was sleeping, a convoy of special forces of the police Daniel Ortega And Rosario Murillo took Bishop Rolando Alvarez, who was very critical of the regime in Nicaragua. After 15 days of siege and police harassment For the Curia, where the religious were held captive along with eight priests and collaborators, the capture took place, one of the hardest blows of the Sandinista regime. Religious persecution He maintains anti-Catholicism and is highly critical of human rights abuses.
“Urgent. At this moment, the National Police has entered the Episcopal Curia of our Diocese of Madagalpa,” the diocese’s Facebook account posted at the time of the priest’s arrest. According to ecclesiastical sources and sources in the city, located 130 kilometers north of the capital Managua, the move was “express” and Monsignor Alvarez was transferred to an unknown location in a van, along with other priests who accompanied him. It is not yet known whether the bishop will be transferred to prison or forcibly deported, as some Catholic sources have suggested.
According to Matagalba’s lawyer Yadar Morazan, “15 to 20 vehicles were parked with police and paramilitary forces, who ordered the security guards of banks and businesses to hide and not see what was happening,” and they closed a grocery store. Works 24 hours a day.
“The law establishes that searches must be conducted from six in the morning to six in the evening, and it can be done at another time only in these two exceptional cases: cases with the consent of the owner of the house or in a more serious manner and urgent cases according to Article 217 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Monsignor Alvarez Where is the urgency or urgency in your control for more than 15 days?” asked a judge who served in the Judicial Service of the Northern Department.
The last tweet of the Matakalpa Bishop was posted on his official account at 00:36 hrs. It said, “Let’s worry about wearing party clothes in the Kingdom of God.” Police operations against the religious began on the 4th after a group of police prevented them from celebrating morning mass at the San Pedro Apostolic Cathedral in Madalpa, before the bishop went out to pray with the Blessed Sacrament and then returned. On the backs of agents to kneel and cry out to God.
On the 5th, Ortega and Murillo police began an investigation process against Rolando Alvarez for “attempting to organize violent groups and engaging in acts of hatred against the population.”
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According to the police, the archbishop, who is the head of the Catholic Church’s top authorities, “using their status as religious leaders, using the media and social networks, they are trying to organize violent groups, inciting them. Hatred against the people. … with the aim of destabilizing the Nicaraguan state and attacking the constitutional authorities.”
Rule from that day Ortega and Murillo Dozens of heavily armed agents from the Directorate of Special Operations (DOEP) intensified the police blockade of Alvarez’s residence and the streets near Curia, which was maintained until this morning’s kidnapping.
In order to withstand the 15-day siege, Monsignor Alvarez and his companions had to ration the food the bishop kept in his cupboard, as the Sandinista regime did not allow food or medicine into the religious compound. The siege against the bishop was directed by Commissioner Ramon Avellon, a loyalist of Ortega-Murillos and responsible for violent actions against opponents since 2018.
“With anger and a hurt heart, I condemn the abduction of Monsignor Alvarez in the night. Those who know where my brother bishop is! Let his kidnappers respect his dignity and release him! Once again, the dictatorship overcomes its own evil and its cruel spirit,” Silvio Baez, the first bishop to be forcibly exiled by the regime, said in his He revealed on his Twitter account.
For his part, exiled priest Edwin Roman described Alvarez’s arrest as outrageous. “Enough of this silence, let those who need to speak, let them show their faces, it is a sin of omission,” criticized the priest with a question from the Synod of Bishops of Nicaragua, which was horrified. Condemn the persecution of Catholicism in this Central American country.
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