Center Seeks International Protection for Cardenal

The Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH) will ask the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to protect revolutionary priest Ernesto Cardenal from the harmful decisions of Nicaraguan judges, says CENIDH s legal director Gonzalo Carrion.

Carrion told The Nica Times this week that CENIDH will petition the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to give Cardenal preventive protection after a Nicaraguan judge rejected the revolutionary poet s petition for a writ of Habeas Corpus last week.

CENIDH s petition came after Sandinista judge Ronaldo Moran froze the 83-year-old priests bank account last week after he refused to pay a $1,025 fine for a defamation sentence he claims he was acquitted from years ago.

Sandinista judge David Rojas, who has since separated himself from the case after Cardenal received a wave of international support, handed down the sentence last month after the case had sat cold for three years.

Cardenal alleges the defamation case was revived because of his recent public critiques of the Ortega government (NT, Sept. 5).

The defamation allegations were made against Cardenal in an ongoing property dispute with a German investor over claims to a hotel in the SolentinameIslands in Lake Nicaragua.

The case against Cardenal, who is revered as a revolutionary icon around the world, has led to international scorn for the Ortega government.

Blake Schmidt