SW News: A Nicaraguan court sentenced four Catholic priests to 10 years in jail on Monday, February 6, after they were convicted of treason and disseminating false information. This took place in the context of what civil rights organizations have referred to as an increasingly brutal assault on opponents of President Daniel Ortega.
On the same allegations, two more Catholic seminarians were also given a 10-year prison term. All six of them are members of the Matagalpa diocese, which is overseen by Bishop Rolando Alvarez, who is under house arrest. The bishop was detained with them in August of last year. Until his trial is over he will be under house arrest in Managua. A cameraman for a Catholic television network was given a 10-year jail term on Monday.
The sentences were referred to by the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center as "a legal aberration." According to the center, "this is an insult to the law, an insult to people's intelligence, an insult to the international community, and an insult to the international organizations for the protection of human rights."
The Human Rights Foundation said on Twitter that the organization requesting the men's immediate release stated, "We condemn these perverse actions of the regime, which violate human rights."
The Vatican was quite disappointed with Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla who took power in 1979 when the Sandinista revolutionary party he led overthrew President Anastasio Somoza. After a long break, he slowly built a relationship with the Church as he ran for president in 2007.
Later he fell foul with the hierarchy and said the nation's Catholic bishops had made a political plan for "the terrorists, at the service of the Yankees" just days before his 2018 re-election.
Following the widespread protests in 2018, human rights organizations accused Ortega of targeting prominent Catholic Church figures.