Nicaraguan bishop who refused exile gets 26 years in prison

Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of Nicaragua’s government, was sentenced to 26 years in prison and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship Friday, the latest move by President Daniel Ortega against the Catholic church and his opponents.

A day after he refused to get on a flight to the United States with 222 other prisoners, all opponents of Ortega, a judge sentenced Álvarez for undermining the government, spreading false information, obstruction of functions and disobedience, according to a government statement published in official outlets.

The sentence handed down by Octavio Ernesto Rothschuh, chief magistrate of the Managua appeals court, is the longest given to any of Ortega’s opponents over the last couple years.

Álvarez was arrested in August along with several other priests and lay people. When Ortega ordered the mass release of political leaders, priests, students and activists widely considered political prisoners and had some of them put on a flight to Washington Thursday, Alvarez refused to board without being able to consult with other bishops, Ortega said.

Álvarez had been one of the most outspoken religious figures still in Nicaragua as Ortega intensified his repression of the opposition.

Nicaragua’s Episcopal Conference did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the sentence. Reached by the AP, Managua vicar Mons. Carlos Avilés said he hadn’t heard anything official. “Maybe tomorrow.”

The church is essentially the last independent institution trusted by a large portion of Nicaraguans and that makes it a threat to Ortega’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

Andrew Chesnut, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said Álvarez’s sentence “constitutes the most severe repression against the Catholic Church in Latin America since the assassination of Guatemalan Bishop Juan José Gerardi in 1998.”

“Since first becoming the ruling party in 1979 the Sandinistas have repressed the Catholic Church like few other regimes in Latin America,” Chesnut said. “Pope Francis has refrained from criticizing President Ortega for fear of inflaming the situation, but many believe that now is the time for him to speak out prophetically in defense of the most persecuted Church in Latin America.”