Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos was sent back to prison last week after he refused to comply with the Ortega regime’s demand that he go into exile [1].
After speaking out against Ortega’s ever-escalating persecution of the Catholic Church, Álvarez, 56, was arrested in 2022 and subsequently sentenced on 10 February after refusing to board a plane carrying 222 political dissidents, including four priests, who were flown to the US in an agreement with the State Department.
Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years and 4 months in prison on treason charges and had his Nicaraguan citizenship revoked.
Under the dictatorship of Ortega and his wife and vice-president Rosario Murillo, hundreds of Nicaraguans, including priests and religious, have been arbitrarily arrested and deported, Church assets and property have been seized, and religious freedom has been greatly restricted.
In March, after Pope Francis strongly criticised the Ortega regime, likening it to Nazi Germany, the dictatorship closed the Holy See’s embassy to Nicaragua, officially cutting off all diplomatic ties with the Vatican.