By Ramírez 22 nic - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikipedia
CV NEWS FEED // The United States Congress Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing urging Nicaragua’s government dictator to free a bishop who has been sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison, accused of being “a traitor to the homeland.”
Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos has been a prisoner in Nicaragua since February of 2022. Nicaragua is currently under the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega, who has been president since 2007.
Chairman Chris Smith (R-NJ) gave the opening remarks on November 30 for the hearing entitled, “Urgent Appeal to Let Bishop Alvarez Go.”
“[Ortega’s] regime has closed Catholic radio stations and universities, obstructed access to places of worship, banned public Way of the Cross processions, and frozen the bank accounts of hundreds of Catholic institutions,” Smith said in his opening statement:
Prisoners’ requests for Bibles have been denied. Bishops and priests, as well as worshippers, have been harassed and detained, and the religious order of sisters founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta—Missionaries of Charity—has been expelled. Bishop Álvarez is now the only known cleric to remain imprisoned by the regime and it’s time to let him go. Just last month twelve priests were sent from imprisonment in Nicaragua to exile in the Vatican—but Bishop Álvarez was not among them—why?
According to Catholic News Agency, Álvarez spoke “out against Ortega’s ever-escalating persecution of the Catholic Church,” and “was arrested in 2022 and subsequently sentenced on Feb. 10 after refusing to board a plane carrying 222 political dissidents, including four priests, who were flown to the U.S. in an agreement with the State Department.”
Álvarez remains imprisoned in La Modelo, “one of Latin America’s most notorious prisons,” Smith said. Recent footage of Álvarez in the prison had been published by the Nicaraguan government that reportedly illustrated the good conditions and treatment he is receiving, but Smith expressed doubts about the footage’s legitimacy.
Smith explained that he has repeatedly requested, along with others, to visit Alvarez in prison, but has received no response.
“The video of Bishop Alvarez released this week by the government of Nicaragua raises serious questions and concerns about his well being. He has lost weight. Is he ill? Is he being provided proper nutrition and basic medical care? We have no idea what is going on day to day,” Smith said:
The conspicuous array of food and drink on the two tables in the government video is eerily reminiscent of a trip Congressman Frank Wolf and I made back in 1989 to Perm Camp 35, the infamous Soviet political prison… After meeting and videotaping two dozen undernourished prisoners, the camp warden took us to the cafeteria.
Every table had an abundance of food on it, some had bites of bread that were half eaten as if there was a fire drill and everybody ran out the door. The garbage cans were filled, overflowing with excess food… Nobody was fooled by such a charade.
There are many questions that demand answers, and I suspect that the answers will only paint a more dire picture of the bishop’s imprisonment in La Modelo, one of Latin America’s most notorious prisons.
The hearing included testimonies from two anonymous exiled prisoners of conscience released by the Nicaraguan government, as well as an anonymous mother of a prisoner of conscience. Deborah Ulmmer, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the National Democratic Institute, also gave testimony.
The anonymous mother testified that one of her sons was kidnapped in 2018 after participating in protests against government reform:
The same day of his kidnapping my son was transferred to the torture prison El Chipote, the mothers remained outside the prison day and night, accompanied by several priests, we did not know if our sons were alive or dead. [It was not until] Bishop Rolando José Álvarez arrived at El Chipote and asked to see the kidnapped young men.. I knew that my son was alive. Bishop Rolando Alvarez together with all the clergy of the Diocese of Matagalpa, celebrated a mass outside the Chipote for the Freedom of the Kidnapped and for the Peace of Nicaragua.
She also described the conditions of her son’s imprisonment as “deplorable:”
As the dictatorship was opening trials for the kidnapped, they were being transferred to the Modelo prison. The Catholic Church made arrangements so that we could see them. The visit took place in a large cell where there were many rusty iron bars. The condition of the cell was deplorable, very dirty. I saw my son tortured, his whole body was beaten and with many insect bites. Right next to us there were some young men, maybe 15, 16 years old, you could see the tortures they had been subjected to; I remember that one of them… showed me his calf, it had been burned with acid, he could not bend the fingers of his hands due to the tortures.
“Today we appeal to President Daniel Ortega: let imprisoned Catholic Bishop Alvarez go, release him from prison,” Smith said:
Out of an abundance of concern for Bishop Alvarez’s welfare and health, let him come to the United States or to the Vatican or somewhere else or stay right in Nicaragua, where he can again serve the people, preach the Good News of the Gospel, and care for the weakest and most vulnerable.
He conveys hope, holiness, humility to the people of Nicaragua, and to the people of the world. Bishop Alvarez is an innocent man enduring unspeakable suffering.
Concluding the hearing, Smith said that he sent a letter to the Secretary of State that
lays out a number of things we think the State could and should be doing [moving forward.] We do it in the spirit of partnership with the administration and I do hope that they will take it seriously. And I will also point out that the Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a petition on behalf of Bishop Alvarez with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.
