Jan. 15 (UPI) — After spending more than a year behind Nicaraguan bars, Rolando Alvarez, a prominent Catholic bishop and outspoken critic of President Daniel Ortega, has been released from prison along with 18 other clergy members.
Alvarez, the 58-year-old bishop of Matagalpa province, was placed under house arrest in August 2022 after criticizing the Ortega’s government over its attacks on Catholicism as well as its human rights record, and was sentenced to 26 years in February, under charges of treason, undermining national integrity and spreading false news, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
On Sunday, the Nicaraguan government announced in a statement that following negotiations with the Vatican, two bishops, including Alvarez, 15 priests and two seminarians it had detained during its crackdown on the church have been released.
All but one of the Catholic Church representatives have returned to Rome where they are guests of Pope Francis, Vatican News reported.
The Nicaraguan government in the statement thanked the pope for the “very respectful and discreet coordination.”
Among those freed include Father Silvio Fonseca, Bishop Isidro Mora and Father Pablo Villafranca who were detained in December just days before Christmas.
The Ortega government has targeted religious institutions, but most notably the Roman Catholic Church, since 2018, according to the USCIRF.
In late December, the U.S. State Department added Nicaragua to its list of Countries of Particular Concern over its worsening religious freedom conditions.
According to the USCIRF’s 2023 report, religious freedom conditions in Nicaragua “worsened considerably” during the previous year as the government escalated its campaign of harassment and persecution of the Catholic church.
“Within the context of a widespread crackdown on civil society organizations critical of the government, the Ortega regime has also pressured the Catholic Church by hindering or preventing church-affiliated organizations and services from operating,” the report stated.
Alvarez’s release comes after Nicaragua in October expelled 10 arbitrarily detained Catholic clergymen from the country.
In November, U.N. human rights experts said that Alvarez was in solitary confinement and under conditions that “gravely contravene the intergovernmental body’s Nelson Mandela Rules on the treatment of prisoners.