Nicaraguans exiled in Costa Rica cried out this Saturday in San José against the detention of clergymen in Nicaragua and alleged that the government of Daniel Ortega fears the Catholic Church for defending “justice” and “human rights.”
Several dozen people arrived at the park in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral in the center of the Costa Rican capital to protest, with flags from Nicaragua and the Vatican, over the imprisonment of at least 14 priests and three seminarians since Christmas.
The relationship between the Church and the government deteriorated after Ortega and the vice president and wife of the president, Rosario Murillo, accused religious leaders of supporting the 2018 anti-government protests, which they considered an attempted coup promoted by Washington and which, according to the UN, resulted in more than 300 deaths and thousands of exiles.
“Ortega is afraid of criticism, of critical thinking, of those who want democracy. The Church has been very much on the side of the people and justice. That is Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s fear,” said José Espinoza, director of the AVODISCR association for the rights of the LGBTI community in Nicaragua.
Alongside the 24-year-old, other Nicaraguans participated in the protest, where the names of the imprisoned clergy were mentioned, the dates of their arrests and their release was requested.
In addition to the recent detainees, Bishop Rolando Álvarez, a critic of Ortega sentenced to 26 years in prison, has been imprisoned since August 2022.
Spanish Dominican priest Rafael Aragón, naturalized Nicaraguan, and for two months in Costa Rica after being denied entry to Nicaragua two years ago, explained that the figure of a cleric in that country is vital in guiding “social life, ethics, morals and spirituality” of a strongly religious people.
“That is the base that Rosario (Murillo) wants to dominate. From an esoteric approach and a syncretistic vision of religion, she wants to end the leadership of priests, bishops and the cardinal so that she can lead the religious culture of the people of Nicaragua,” said the 73-year-old priest, who has lived in Nicaragua for 45 years.
The criticisms from Costa Rica were preceded by those issued by Pope Francis from the Vatican last Monday, when he warned of his “concern” after the traditional Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square on January 1.
I continue to follow “with deep concern what is happening in Nicaragua, where bishops and priests have been deprived of their freedom,” the pontiff said.
In San José, the representative of the Union of Nicaraguan Political Prisoners, Yaritza Mairena, said that Ortega’s government “has no intention of allowing the Church to serve as a unifying entity,” “of organization” or denunciation.
“The Church has been a defender of justice and has denounced the major violations of human rights that have occurred in Nicaragua,” she said, adding that the Nicaraguan government “will continue to persecute the Church for the simple fact of being on the side of justice.”
Vice President Murillo read on Thursday, during her usual speech broadcast on official media, a poem according to which it is “false that there is religious persecution.”
