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MEXICO CITY, Feb. 8 (AP) — A Nicaraguan court sentenced four Roman Catholic priests to 10 years in prison on conspiracy charges stemming from the government’s long-running accusation that the church supported illegal pro-democracy protests.
A human rights group in the Central American country was quick to condemn the sentence, which was delivered on Monday and released by lawyers from the legal defense team.
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This is the latest chapter in President Daniel Ortega’s crackdown on the church.
The priests were convicted in closed trials, with government-appointed defenders representing the priests.
The priests worked with Bishop Rolando Alvarez of Matagalpa, and one of them was rector of the private John Paul II University in the capital of Managua.
Alvarez is under house arrest for conspiracy and “undermining the Nicaraguan government and society” and will soon be sentenced.
Two seminary students and a photographer who worked for the diocese were also sentenced on Monday. All six defendants were arrested last year and all were stripped of their right to hold political office.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights described the sentences as “legal lapses”.
“This is an insult to the law, an insult to the wisdom of the people, and an insult to the international community and international institutions that protect human rights,” the center said in a statement Tuesday.
Bishop Alvarez has been a key religious voice discussing Nicaragua’s future since 2018, when a wave of protests against Ortega’s government led to a sweeping crackdown on opponents.
The government has arrested dozens of opposition leaders in 2021, including seven potential presidential candidates. They were jailed last year in a fast-track trial that was closed to the public.
Ortega argued that the pro-democracy protests were staged with foreign support and the backing of the Catholic Church. Last year, he expelled the nuns of the Sisters of Charity of Mother Teresa and the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s top diplomat in Nicaragua.
Last August, Pope Francis told thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square that he was closely following events in Nicaragua involving “individuals and institutions.” He made no mention of the pastor or Alvarez’s detention.
“I want to express my belief and hope that through open and sincere dialogue, people can still find the basis for respect and peaceful coexistence,” the pope said.
A former Marxist guerrilla, Ortega first came to power in 1979 after the Sandinista revolutionary group he helped lead overthrew the dictatorship of President Anastasio Somoza in 1979. Angered the Vatican in the 1980s. But after a long absence from power, he gradually forged an alliance with the church after regaining the presidency in 2007.
Then just days before he was elected to a fourth consecutive term last year, he accused the nation’s Catholic bishops of having drafted a political proposal in 2018 on behalf “of the terrorists, at the service of the Yankees.” Flagged as a terrorist. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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