The Nicaraguan opposition takes for granted the imminent release of Monsignor Rolando Alvarez, after being released from the prison where he had been since last February, when the rebel bishop refused to be exiled to the US along with the 222 political prisoners released then.
“Where is Bishop Alvarez?” They have informed me that they took him out of La Modelo prison last night and that the regime intends to send him to Rome,” advanced human rights activist Bianca Jagger.
“We urge the international community, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church inside and outside Nicaragua, and human rights organizations to be extremely vigilant. We continue to demand the release of our bishop,” he stressed. Felix Maradiaga, former presidential candidate now in the US and who is part of the group of 222. The opposition leader informed the country that unofficial sources confirmed that the bishop was going to be sent out of Nicaragua in the next few hours, in addition to assuring that he was no longer in the penitentiary center.
Last week, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Sandinista government to immediately release Monsignor Álvarez, finding himself in a “serious situation of irreparable damage to his life, health, and personal integrity.” Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, announced that he would demand Ortega’s freedom after meeting with the Pope in Rome.
The firm position of the bishop of Matagalpa made impossible the political benefit that Daniel Ortega he was looking for by sending the cream of Nicaraguan dissidence to the US, which provoked the ire of the dictator, who defined him as a deranged and madman, “incapable of having the courage of Christ, who endured the crucifixion”.