A Roman Catholic Priest and his driver have been detained and held for over a week in Granada Municipality, Nicaragua, with no news given to their families of their whereabouts.
According to a press release issued by the Public Relations Department of the National Police of Nicaragua (PN) on Thursday 19 June, Father Pedro Abelardo Méndez Pérez and his driver Luis David Ñamendi Suárez were detained at a police checkpoint at 7pm in the evening of 19 June in Granada and accused of being in ‘a state of drunkenness’.
Both men were reported by the PN to have had more than one gram of alcohol in their bloodstream and were arrested for the ‘crime of exposing people to danger, by threatening the security of people and their families, violating the Transit Law’. Under normal circumstances, were the accusations true, the law should only have been applied to the driver, making the detention of the passenger, Father Méndez Pérez, arbitrary.
Father Méndez Pérez serves in the parish of Santa María Magdalena in Monimbó, Masaya Department. He is an open critic of co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, having denounced violations against protesters in the April 2018 protests. In June 2018 he was subjected to threats and physical violence. In March 2023 he called for a day of prayer on behalf of then imprisoned Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos and evaded PN attempts to arrest him in retaliation.
Violations of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in Nicaragua remain severe and numerous. Leaders of different religious groups frequently report that they are subjected to regular harassment and surveillance by the police. Some have been placed under what the government refers to as ‘precautionary measures’ which require them to make weekly, in person reports to local police and to share details of their planned activities, and bans them from leaving their municipality without government authorisation.
Father Pedro Abelardo Méndez Pérez joins a growing number of religious leaders and lay leaders who have been arbitrarily detained by the dictatorship. In May 2022 Protestant Pastor Efrén Antonio Vílchez López was beaten and detained, he is serving a 23-year sentence on trumped up charges. In August 2024 Roman Catholic lay leaders Carmen María Sáenz Martínez and Lesbia del Socorro Gutiérrez Poveda were detained and have now spent over nine months in incommunicado detention with no proof of life provided to their families.
CSW’s Director of Advocacy Anna Lee Stangl said: ‘Given that Father Pedro Abelardo Méndez Pérez was not driving, the Nicaraguan authorities had no grounds upon which to arrest him for supposedly violating the Transit Law. Even were the charges based in fact, the driver of the vehicle, Luis David Ñamendi Suárez, should only have been detained for a maximum of 12 hours. The Nicaraguan government must immediately release Father Pedro Abelardo Méndez Pérez and his driver. We urge the international community to increase pressure on the Nicaraguan government by using targeted sanctions against those responsible for violations of freedom of religion or belief, and to push for the release of all political prisoners.’
Note to Editors:
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Article 26 of Transit Law 431 states anyone caught driving with alcohol levels between one and two grams per litre of blood, can be fined 4,000 córdobas (approximately £49 GBP). Article 27 states that, in addition to the fine, the person can be detained for up to 12 hours.