The government of Nicaragua has canceled the Catholic Aid Agency Caritas. The cancellation, as reports the newspaper "La Prensa", was granted for "voluntary dissolution of its members". According to what was reported by the Managua authorities. A decision which, writes the newspaper, was taken in the context of growing government pressure against NGOs operating in the country and the Catholic Church in particular. In the latest in a series of measures against the Catholic Church in the country, the government of Daniel Ortega has banned Easter and Holy Week processions and sentenced Bishop Rolando Alvarez to 26 years in prison for alleged "betrayal of the country". In 2022, the religious Sisters of Charity, founded by St. Mother Teresa, were also forced to leave the country.
The government of Nicaragua is committing multiple human rights violations that constitute politically motivated crimes against civilians, according to the United Nations Independent Panel of Experts on Nicaragua. For the panel of experts, which reported to the UN Human Rights Council, the alleged abuses - which include extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, torture, arbitrary deprivation of nationality and the right to remain in one's country - are not a phenomenon isolated, but the product of the deliberate dismantling of democratic institutions and the destruction of civic space. and democratic.
Since December 2018, the report presented to the Council reads, at least 3,144 civil society organizations have been closed down and virtually all independent media and human rights organizations operate from abroad. And the situation, experts warn, is getting worse. In February 2023, the Nicaraguan authorities deprived 222 people of their nationality and expelled them from the country, accusing them of being "traitors to the homeland". In the same month, the Managua Court of Appeals declared another 94 people living in Nicaragua and abroad traitors, depriving them of their nationality and ordering the confiscation of their assets in favor of the state.
Sources: laprensani.com and https://www.agenzianova.com/en/news/nicaragua-caritas-closes-and-suspends-aid-to-the-population/ - Image Source: Caritas Nicaragua https://twitter.com/caritasnic/status/1197562990624755712/photo/1
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