SW News: Bishop Rolando Alvarez of Matagalpa, who was sentenced to 26 years and 4 months in prison, made his first statements in a video that was published by a media outlet associated with Daniel Ortega's dictatorship in Nicaragua. When asked how he was doing, the Bishop of Matagalpa said, "Thank God well, with much inner strength, with much peace in the Lord and the Blessed Virgin".

The bishop is being held at "La Modelo," the Jorge Navarro prison in Tipitapa. In this jail, a lot of human rights violations take place, including the overcrowding of detainees, inadequate medical care, assaults by prison employees against convicts, and denial of visitation rights to family members.

The prelate had chosen to stay with 37 other prisoners who are still being held in Nicaraguan prisons rather than being deported to the United States along with 222 other political prisoners, including priests and seminarians. This infuriated the regime leading to his sentencing.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently testified before the US Congress that Bishop Alvarez's situation is being followed and that he ought to be released.

Blinken made this statement during a hearing on the federal budget for 2024 that took place on Thursday, March 23, in the House of Representatives.

Jake Laturner, a Republican from Kansas, asked Blinken a question after recalling that Bishop Alvarez had received a prison term for his fortitude to stand out against the anti-democratic persecution of the Ortega dictatorship. Laturner also made a reference to the Secretariat of State's 2022 Human Rights Report, which lists the excesses of the dictatorship in Nicaragua, including, among other things, unjustified arrests, torture, denial of fair trials, and murders; it also describes the electoral procedures that have kept Ortega in power since 2007.

Blinken spoke with some of the political prisoners, including priests and seminarians, who were repatriated from Nicaragua on February 9 and expressed his relief that "they are out of jail, where they should never have been."