Central America
Nicaragua court finds activists guilty of ‘conspiracy’
AFP
A Nicaraguan court Thursday found two prominent opposition figures guilty of “conspiracy,” according to a human rights organization which condemned the trial as “null and void” for taking place behind closed doors.
Former guerrilla Dora Maria Tellez and student leader Lesther Aleman were tried at El Chipote — one of the country’s most notorious prisons where dozens of activists detained in the run-up to last year’s election are being held.
The trial of the Tellez — a former leftist guerrilla who fought alongside President Daniel Ortega during Nicaragua’s civil war — and Aleman took place behind closed doors, with only a sole family member of each in attendance.
“They were found guilty of forming an association of wrongdoers undermining national integrity,” the independent Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights said.
“The process was null and void because it violated the constitutional guarantees that stipulate that trials must be public and that the press must be able to attend,” it added.
It was not clear what the sentence was, but a member of the opposition Blue and White National Unity party told AFP that magistrates had asked for a 15-year jail term for the 66-year-old Tellez, a historian and one of the founders of the dissident Sandinista Renovation Movement.
Student leader Aleman, 24, rose to fame after publicly calling for Ortega’s resignation during a dialogue between the government and activists involved in 2018 protests.
“His only crime is to have spoken in the name of everyone in 2018, confronting Mr. Ortega with his crimes and demanding he leave office,” journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, speaking from exile in Costa Rica, said on Twitter.
Family of the dozens of activists held since last year have said the opposition figures are suffering from serious health issues, experiencing blackouts and loss of teeth.
Last month the United Nations human rights body urged Nicaragua — Central America’s poorest country — to free people who had been arbitrarily detained and to stop prosecutions and harassment of political opponents, journalists and human rights defenders.
Central America
El Salvador to host World Cup qualifiers vs. Guatemala and Panama at Estadio Cuscatlán
El Salvador’s national football team will host its final round World Cup qualifying matches against Guatemala and Panama at Estadio Cuscatlán, the honorary president of the National Sports Institute (INDES), Yamil Bukele, announced Thursday via a statement on his X account.
The official explained that this decision comes after the American rock band Guns N’ Roses, originally scheduled to perform at Estadio Cuscatlán on Saturday, October 4, will now hold their concert at Estadio Jorge “El Mágico” González. This change allows both of La Selecta’s qualifying matches to be played at the “Coloso de Monserrat.”
“After a series of efforts and in response to popular demand, we are pleased to announce that our senior national team’s CONCACAF World Cup qualifying matches next October (Oct. 10 vs. Panama and Oct. 14 vs. Guatemala) will take place at Estadio Cuscatlán,” the statement reads.
Bukele also thanked the event promoters and the band for agreeing to the stadium change. “We sincerely thank Guns N’ Roses and StarTicket for agreeing to move the concert originally scheduled for October 4 at Estadio Cuscatlán,” the statement adds.
Additionally, Bukele expressed gratitude to the FESFUT Regularization Commission for their efforts with CONCACAF to make this possible, and he urged fans to stay tuned to official channels to purchase tickets and support La Selecta in their World Cup qualifying campaign.
Central America
Honduran president Xiomara Castro suspends activities due to influenza
Honduran President Xiomara Castro announced on Thursday that she has “temporarily” suspended her public activities due to a severe influenza virus.
“A strong influenza virus requires me to rest, trusting that I will be fully recovered for the grand celebration of our National Independence Day” next Monday, Castro stated on the social media platform X.
The president had planned to participate in several inaugurations across the northern, central, and eastern regions of the country throughout the week. She added that “these events will be rescheduled for new dates.”
Central America
Nicaragua’s government expels bishops, priests, and nuns in religious persecution
At least 261 religious figures, including the president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference, Carlos Enrique Herrera, have been expelled as part of the persecution by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s regime against the Catholic Church, reported the NGO Colectivo Nicaragua Nunca Más in its report Faith Under Fire.
The report details that among those expelled are bishops Silvio Báez, Rolando Álvarez, Isidoro Mora, as well as the Apostolic Nuncio in Managua, Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, along with approximately 140 priests, over 90 nuns, ten seminarians, and three deacons from different dioceses in the country.
“Since the expulsion of Nuncio Sommertag in March 2022, relations between Nicaragua and the Vatican have significantly deteriorated,” the NGO noted.
The report also documents the closure of 5,609 non-profit organizations, of which 1,294 were religious, including churches, universities, schools, clinics, and humanitarian organizations. Most of these had their assets confiscated by the Sandinista government. Additionally, the telecommunications regulator TELCOR shut down 54 media outlets, including 22 religious radio stations and TV channels.
Repression has extended to other religious denominations, with forced disappearances and criminalization of evangelical pastors, control over temples, media censorship, fiscal pressure, property confiscation, and the cancellation of legal status for the Moravian Church. Pastor Rudy Palacios remains in detention as part of this pattern of persecution.
The NGO emphasized that churches, especially the Catholic Church, played a key role in the 2018 national dialogue, denouncing abuses and providing refuge to injured protesters, which fueled the government’s hostility.
In 2023, Pope Francis described Ortega’s regime as a “blatant dictatorship”, to which the Nicaraguan president responded by dissolving the Society of Jesus and labeling the Church as a “mafia” and “anti-democratic.”
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