Nicaraguan priests targeted in latest wave of arrests

Nicaraguan authorities have arrested at least 12 priests since December 20, opposition figures and news reports said Saturday.

Eleven of those arrested appear on a list given to AFP by lawyer Martha Molina, an expert on Nicaraguan Church affairs, exiled in the United States.

The newspaper La Prensa also said Jader Hernandez, pastor of a church in Managua, was detained.

Nicaragua is led by President Daniel Ortega, a former guerrilla leader who toppled a US-backed right-wing regime in the 1970s and ruled for more than a decade.

But since returning to power in 2007, Ortega has turned authoritarian as he exiled and jailed dissidents and rivals, quashed presidential term limits and seized control of all branches of the state. He has also locked horns with the Catholic Church.

The Central American nation has shuttered more than 3,000 associations, NGOs and unions in the wake of 2018 protests against Ortega's government.

Hundreds of critics have been detained, including several people who sought to challenge Ortega ahead of presidential elections in 2021.

In October, the authorities shuttered the local office of the Franciscans, a Catholic order.

Relations between the Vatican and the Managua government deteriorated amid the 2018 protests, during which more than 300 people were killed in clashes between the opposition and government supporters, according to the United Nations.

Ortega's government was angry that churches sheltered protesters during a crackdown on those massive anti-government demonstrations.