The president of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives, Republican María Elvira Salazar, sent a letter to the American government to ask that the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the party of Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega, be included on the State Department’s List of Entities of Special Concern for violations of religious freedom.
In the document, sent this Monday (18) to Rashad Hussain, general ambassador of the United States for International Religious Freedom, Salazar, congressman from Florida, mentions the recent closure of the Central American University (UCA), linked to the Jesuits; the revocation of the legal status of the Society of Jesus itself in Nicaragua; and the arrest of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, sentenced in February to 26 years in prison for “treason against the country”.
“The Sandinista Front is the political arm of Ortega’s bloody regime.[Rosario] Murillo [esposa do ditador e vice-presidente da Nicarágua]
and his crimes against the Catholic faithful cannot continue unpunished,” Salazar said in a press release.
“The crimes of the Sandinista Front against Catholics in Nicaragua are well documented. It’s time to add the Sandinistas to the List of Entities of Special Concern, now!” said the congresswoman, who is the daughter of Cuban exiles.
In the statement, Salazar commented that the Sandinistas “have a long history of religious intolerance and persecution, beginning in the 1980s with threats against the country’s Jewish community and the burning and desecration of their only synagogue.”
In recent years, the biggest victims have been Catholics. Since last year, Nicaragua has intensified the persecution of the Catholic Church, with arrests and expulsions of religious people from the country, appropriation of assets, freezing of accounts and prohibition of activities, such as processions and the operation of entities linked to Christians.
Dictator Daniel Ortega accuses the Church of trying to overthrow him, for having supported and welcomed protesters in the 2018 pro-democracy protests.
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