{"id":31989,"date":"2025-04-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csw-yeo.1wp.site\/magazines\/campaign-where-are-they-6475\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T21:22:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T20:22:01","slug":"campaign-where-are-they-6475","status":"publish","type":"magazines","link":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/magazines\/campaign-where-are-they-6475\/","title":{"rendered":"Campaign: Where are they?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Carmen Mar\u00eda S\u00e1enz Mart\u00ednez and Lesbia del Socorro Guti\u00e9rrez Poveda are Catholic lay leaders in Nicaragua. They are prisoners of a regime solely interested in its own survival.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 6am on 10 August 2024, fifteen police officers wearing ski masks and carrying AK-47s arrested 58-year-old Lesbia at her home in Lomas de Santo Tomas in Matagalpa City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two hours later, police in two patrol cars detained Lesbia\u2019s colleague Carmen, age 49, at the Guadalupana Farm in Samulali in the San Ram\u00f3n Municipality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither woman has been seen or heard from since<\/b>. They are believed to be held in La Esperanza women\u2019s prison, but they have had no contact with lawyers or families in over eight months \u2013 not even a proof of life. Where are they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither woman has committed any crime.<\/b> Yet they have been treated as criminals for serving their communities through the Roman Catholic Church, inspired by their faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Carmen and Lesbia worked with the Diocese of Matagalpa. This was formerly led by the now-exiled Bishop Rolando Jos\u00e9 \u00c1lvarez Lagos, who was unjustly imprisoned for nearly a year and a half before he was expelled from the country in January 2024. Lesbia had worked with the diocese\u2019s rural and urban credit project since 2006, and Carmen worked as a justice promoter in marriage annulment cases since 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This case is part of the Nicaraguan government\u2019s continued onslaught against religious leaders, human rights defenders, and other independent voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Join the campaign: csw.org.uk\/wherearethey<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re calling on the Nicaraguan government to provide an urgent proof of life for Carmen and Lesbia; to free them immediately and without condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2024 at a glance:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

222 violations<\/b> of freedom of religion or belief recorded by CSW. In the current climate of fear, a significant percentage of violations goes unreported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

46<\/b> cases of religious leaders being arbitrarily detained. In some cases, multiple people were detained. Some were short term (lasting from hours to a few days) while some are still not free, like Carmen and Lesbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost 2,000<\/b> independent civil society organisations had their legal status cancelled, including churches and, in some cases, entire denominations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From CSW\u2019s latest report on Nicaragua, covering 1 January-31 December 2024:<\/i>\u2018Total Control: The Eradication of Independent Voices in Nicaragua.\u2019<\/b><\/i><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carmen Mar\u00eda S\u00e1enz Mart\u00ednez and Lesbia del Socorro Guti\u00e9rrez Poveda are Catholic lay leaders in Nicaragua. They are prisoners of a regime solely interested in its own survival<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10105,"template":"","regions":[137,142],"class_list":["post-31989","magazines","type-magazines","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","regions-latin-america","regions-nicaragua"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazines\/31989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazines"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazines"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazines\/31989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41762,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazines\/31989\/revisions\/41762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=31989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}