House lawmakers are urging Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to launch Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, the one remaining cleric nonetheless jailed within the nation.
“Bishop Álvarez is an innocent man enduring unspeakable suffering,” Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s international well being, international human rights and worldwide organizations subcommittee mentioned throughout a Thursday listening to of the panel. “His life and ministry have been an inspiring example of compassion, kindness, integrity and selfless service.”
Leader of the Matagalpa diocese, Monsignor Álvarez was positioned below a de facto home arrest in August 2022 after he criticized the Ortega regime’s human rights report and its closure of a number of Catholic radio stations within the nation.
In February, a courtroom in Managua sentenced the cleric to 26 years in jail after he rejected a proposal to be exiled to the United States. He was charged with treason, undermining nationwide integrity and spreading false information, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported. Monsignor Álvarez was additionally stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship and fined.
Two exiled prisoners of conscience, Nicaraguan Catholics whose identities had been hid to guard their family members, informed the House subcommittee that the regime of Mr. Ortega and his vice chairman and spouse Rosario Murillo has focused the church.
“We were accused of being members of an organized crime gang and that the leaders were the bishops, and above all, they said [Monsignor] Rolando,” one of many prisoners mentioned. “I was interrogated and I was accused of giving hate speeches, of organizing an uprising. I was accused of undermining the dignity of the state and of Nicaragua, of spreading false news.”
A second exiled prisoner informed the panel, “They blackmailed me and threatened the lives of my relatives, because they wanted me to declare that the bishop was a member of an organization that wanted to promote a coup d’état against Daniel Ortega and that he received money from the U.S. government and the European Union.”
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, Florida Republican, additionally denounced the bishop’s imprisonment.
“What is inconceivable is that Daniel Ortega meddles or interferes with the Catholic Church, something that not even the dictator Somoza was willing to do,” Ms. Salazar mentioned. “He’s holding as a prisoner one of the most important members of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, for more than a year now.
“The question is, how does Ortega know that he can do this to somebody of such importance in an institution that is twice as popular and has more [public] confidence than the Ortega regime?”
Although Mr. Smith has labored to maintain the case in the general public eye, the Biden administration’s place is much less outlined. In August, the State Department imposed visa restrictions on 100 Nicaraguan officers, partly due to the cleric’s imprisonment, Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned on the time.
But requested in regards to the Álvarez case at a White House briefing Wednesday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby mentioned, “I’m not tracking that particular case.”
