Sources denounce the situation at El Chipote Torture Centre as Critical. “One of the priests is losing his sight and hearing,” says Fr. Uriel Vallejos in a tweet; the other priests are “extremely thin.”
Newsroom (29/11/2022 9:10 AM, Gaudium Press) As reported by Il Sismografo, Bishop Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of Matagalpa and under house arrest in Managua, is ill. Contrary to what has been said, the prelate is not at his family’s home.
They also reports that the other priests who were arrested along with Bishop Álvarez at the Matagalpa curia, and who are being held in the sinister El Chipote prison, are also ill.
“One of the priests is losing his sight and hearing,” says Fr. Uriel Vallejos in a tweet, and says the other priests are “extremely thin.”
Bishop Rolando has been in captivity for more than three and a half months, from the time he was surrounded in the curia last August 4 until August 19, when the police, during the early hours of the morning, took him to Managua. There is talk of “kidnapping” because there is no evidence that the arrested bishop and priests have gone through due process of law.
The list of those imprisoned at El Chipote, Bishop Álvarez’s companions, is as follows: priests Ramiro Reynaldo Tijerino Chávez, José Luis Díaz Cruz, and Sadiel Antonio Eugarrios Cano; deacon Raúl Antonio Vega González, seminarians Darvin Esteylin, Leiva Mendoza, and Melkin Antonio Centeno Sequeira, and cameraman Sergio José Cárdenas Flores.
“Bishop Rolando is ill. Medical care is provided by the same system. So is their food. The bishop is NOT with his family. What the priests, bishops and seminarians suffer is inhuman. SOS to the priests, laity, and bishop. The people are alarmed by this situation”, says Father Vallejos, who is the pastor of the Jesus of Divine Mercy Parish in the municipality of Sébaco, although he has been in exile since last August.
Manuel Garcia Rodriguez from Nandaime, sentenced to 2 years in prison for threatening 5 Sandinista sympathizers with weapons; and also to 2 years and 8 months in prison for psychological and physical damage against Martha Candelaria Rivas Hernandez, who recanted, and was later convicted of false testimony; Fr. Óscar Danilo Benavídez Dávila, who was in a parish in Mulukukú, in the northern Caribbean, and Fr. Benito Enrique Martínez Gamboa, of the Archdiocese of Managua, accused of alleged crimes of “conspiracy to attempt against national integrity and of spreading false news through information and communication technologies.”
