This Nicaraguan priest’s words take on a greater dimension after last Sunday’s elections, when the Sandinistas were elected in all of the municipalities.

Newsroom (14/11/2022 12:05 PM, Gaudium Press) Fr. Edwing Román is a well-known Nicaraguan priest, who in the past few days has been forced into exile by the Nicaraguan dictatorship, and has again spoken openly on his Twitter account about the reality which his country is living through:

 “In Nicaragua there is a Church persecuted by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, with a bishop (@silviojbaez) and priests in exile, a bishop (@DiocesisdeMat) whom we do not know where and how he is, in addition to priests unjustly imprisoned. That is our reality.” Also, in an earlier tweet, he had stated, “One of two: one is either an accomplice or not to the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. One cannot be ambiguous.”

Fr Román is not only well known in Nicaragua, but throughout the world, because in May of 2018 he opened the doors of his parish to receive wounded young people fleeing pro-government paramilitary groups. The parish of St. Michael the Archangel of Masaya was subsequently attacked with shellfire.

This is Our Reality: A dictatorship

Therefore, for this priest, it is not that there are acts against the Church in his country, but that the Nicaraguan Church is a persecuted Church.

His affirmation that the regime in force in his country is a dictatorship has been confirmed by the events of the last few days.

Last Sunday there were elections in Nicaragua, and Ortega’s forces won all 153 prefectures. Opposition forces, such as Espacio de Diálogo y Confluencia, called on the international community to put more pressure on the Ortega regime, describing it as an “electoral farce”.

Similarly, the Open Polls observatory denounced the increase in arrests, searches and sieges on the Saturday before the elections and calculated abstention at 82.67%, a figure much higher than that admitted by the government.

It is no longer just protest in the streets that is harshly repressed by Sandinista forces.

Since the year 2020, in Nicaragua, the so-called Special Law on Cybercrime is in force, which has as its primary objective the criminalization of the publication of content that the regime considers false, not only by the media, but also by any citizen on social networks.

Compiled by Sandra Chisholm