US concerned about campaign of “religious persecution” in Nicaragua

The US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent and bipartisan entity of the US government, analyzed on Tuesday the campaign of “religious persecution” against priests of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua and pastors of other denominations opposed to the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

At the same time, they asked experts from the region and the United States on issues of development, human rights, and religious freedom to thoroughly expose the situation in the Central American country, where at least eleven priests and one bishop of the Catholic Church face criminal charges for showing open opposition to the Ortega-Murillo government.

“Ortega’s campaign of persecution against religious freedom is aggressive,” said Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, when reviewing the expulsion of the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio from Nicaragua, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, in March, and the successive captures of priests in mid of this year, as a moment that has highlighted the magnitude of the crisis.

“This religious persecution in Nicaragua is systematic and is directed at those who appeal to freedom,” said the congressman in his presentation.

For his part, Patrick Ventrell, director of the State Department’s Office for Central American Affairs, added that the reports from the center of US diplomacy have warned about the situation, which includes not only religious motivations, but also impacts all people who show support for democracy and the defense of human rights.

“The situation in Nicaragua is critical, due to the abuses of the Ortega-Murillo regime, its attacks on democracy and human rights violations. Now it has worsened with the persecution of religious, “explained the official.

The president of the USCIRF, Commissioner Nury Turkel, said that this examination on religious freedom in Nicaragua takes effect when seeing the denunciations of human rights violations, the alarming number of political prisoners, among them “national leaders and journalists”, who tried to challenge Daniel Ortega in his re-election in 2021, and that they are now in jail.

“And more recently that crackdown has been directed at religious leaders of the Catholic Church, with clearly notable actions,” Turkel explained.

Observer data

In a second panel of the event broadcast online, Irela Guevara, director of the non-governmental organization Outreach Aid to the Americas, presented to the Commission the compilations of data that help to understand the magnitude of the crisis.

So far this year, they have recorded 109 attacks against religious temples, including arson, or where “the entry and exit of parishioners is recorded on video to scare them away from the temples.” His organization’s counts indicate that some 60 church members have been prevented from entering the country; in addition to the imprisoned priests.

This year also the Ortega government expelled from the country to 18 nuns of the Missionaries of Charity order.

The charges against the captured religious range from alleged common criminal actions to charges of “treason” or “terrorism,” explained the expert.

Nicaraguan Manuel Orozco, development expert and director of a migration program at an analysis center in Washington DC, delved into the fact that the crisis situation manifests itself in the stampede of citizens of his country who are trying to escape, and compares The Nicaraguan case on the scale of the crises developed in Venezuela and Cuba.

The government of Daniel Ortega has rejected the persecution of religious men because of their affiliation, and has reiterated that the legal proceedings are “inventions” within the framework of a campaign to “give Nicaragua a bad name in the eyes of international organizations.”

The government has accused the country’s bishops of “taking sides” and colluding with the “coup plotters” and even the Nicaraguan government accuses them of promoting and creating “satanic sects.”

The experts convened by the USCIRF agreed that the Central American country is at a crossroads with a dominant official narrative, and where more and more restrictions are imposed to receive independent information to citizens, among these they mentioned the closure of 8 radio stations of the Catholic Church and the cancellation of hundreds of civil society organizations.

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