CV NEWS FEED // Human rights activist Bianca Jagger is campaigning to raise awareness of the anti-Catholic crusade taking place in her native country Nicaragua.
In a recent article published by the Independent, Jagger declared “it is time the world to wake up” to the realities of the “brutal” Ortega-Murillo regime, which has been ruthlessly persecuting its citizens and the Catholic Church, since 2018.
“The Ortega-Murillo regime’s ‘purge’ of the Catholic Church has included abducting, imprisoning and convicting bishops, priests, seminarians, and members of religious congregations on trumped-up charges of plotting a coup,” Jagger recounted.
“Many have been banished from Nicaragua, with such repressive tactics being likened to Joseph Stalin’s purge of religious institutions in the Soviet Union,” she added.
The former spouse of Rolling Stones frontrunner Mick Jagger highlighted the Ortega-Murillo regime’s treatment of the Matagalpa Diocese Bishop Monsignor Rolando Álvarez Lagos.
“Alvarez had been targeted after refusing to join the hundreds of political prisoners who had been exiled to the United States,” Jagger wrote:
Not wanting to abandon the people of Nicaragua, as retaliation, he was then transferred to the infamous “La Modelo” prison, and during a spurious trial, was held to be a traitor to the country and sentenced to 26 years and 4 months, while also being stripped of his nationality.
He has since become a powerful symbol of resistance in Nicaragua, never faltering in his struggle against tyranny and oppression.
Jagger remained a staunch supporter of Álvarez throughout his unlawful detention, testifying internationally on his behalf, and that of other “bishops, priests, seminarians, sisters of charity, and political prisoners […] languishing in the dungeons of Nicaragua.”
Jagger described the Catholic Church in Nicaragua as “the country’s last bastion of opposition” against the Ortega-Murrillo dictatorship, which has fixed its wrath upon religious leaders because it knows “how loved and respected they are by the people of Nicaragua.”
Citing the closure of Catholic media outlets, schools, and NGOs, along with the expulsion of over 200 priests and 85 nuns and religious sisters, Jagger likened Nicaragua’s current leadership to 20th century Communist dictatorships such as that of Fidel Castro in Cuba.
“By 1965, only about one-quarter of the Catholic clergy remained in Cuba,” Jagger pointed out. “Many churches were abandoned, and religious activity virtually came to a halt. We are seeing something almost identical in Nicaragua.”
“It is not enough to issue statements of condemnation of the regime every time Ortega and Murillo expel Nicaraguans from their own country,” Jagger concluded. “It is time for the world to wake up.”
