In testimony to a U.S. congressional human rights commission, two prominent human rights experts decried the ongoing repression of the Catholic Church by Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega and urged additional action by the U.S. to oppose Ortega’s regime.

Ortega’s government has in recent years detained, imprisoned, and likely tortured numerous Catholic leaders, including at least one bishop and several priests. His government has also taken action to repress Catholic radio and television stations, and driven Catholic religious orders, including the Missionaries of Charity, from the country. The regime also expelled Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, the former apostolic nuncio in Nicaragua, from the country, a move the Vatican called “incomprehensible.”

“Every kind of religion is suffering the repression of this regime,” Bianca Jagger, a Catholic human rights activist, testified to the committee, but in particular, she said, Ortega is seeking to “destroy the Catholic Church in Nicaragua.”

Jagger is a former actress and ex-wife of Mick Jagger. She is also Nicaraguan and said she knows personally many of the Catholics who have been detained in the country.