Salazar Urges Inclusion of Sandinistas on State Department Blacklist

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Western Hemisphere Subcommittee Chairwoman María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) sent a letter to the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain urging him to include the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) on the Entities of Particular Concern List for violations of religious freedom.

“The Frente Sandinista is the political arm of the bloody Ortega-Murillo regime, and its crimes against the Catholic faithful can no longer go unpunished,” said Chairwoman Salazar. “The atrocities of the Frente Sandinista against Catholics in Nicaragua are well documented. It’s time to add the Sandinistas to the Entities of Particular Concern List – now!”

The Sandinistas have a long history of religious intolerance and persecution beginning in the 1980s with threats made against the country’s Jewish community and the firebombing and desecration of its only synagogue.

The criminal, socialist Ortega-Murillo regime is also responsible for some of the most reprehensible human rights abuses against Catholics recorded in Latin America. Almost three-quarters of Nicaraguans belong to the Catholic Church, registering more than 5 million faithful. There have been over 400 attacks on the Church since anti-regime protests intensified in 2018.

For example, police and paramilitaries affiliated with the Sandinista regime entered the Divine Mercy parish in Managua, locked in young protestors, and massacred them. In 2020, a firebomb was thrown into the Managua Cathedral, destroying the famous image of the Blood of Christ, a 382-year-old crucifix beloved by Nicaraguans.

The regime also arrested several religious leaders while shutting down Catholic radio stations and public religious ceremonies. Of those jailed includes Monseñor Rolando Álvarez, the Bishop of Matagalpa, who previously spent months living under house arrest unable to perform his sacramental duties as a priest. Ortega also ordered the dissolution of hundreds of organizations and NGOs that serve the nation’s poorest, including nuns who worked with Mother Teresa. The regime also ordered the closure of Catholic media outlets while breaking relations with the Vatican by expelling the Apostolic Nuncio.

Most recently, the regime expelled the nation’s Jesuit order and the Jesuit-affiliated Central American University in August 2023.

Chairwoman Salazar is a leading voice on the cause to liberate the Nicaraguan people from the grasp of the criminal Ortega-Murillo regime. Just this year alone, she has taken vital steps to hold the regime accountable and to support Nicaraguan exiles abroad through the Nicaraguan Political Prisoner Support Act.

BACKGROUND:

The Entities of Particular Concern List is a designation by the United States Secretary of State of an organization responsible for particularly severe violations of religious freedom under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998 as amended in 1999.

Organizations such as ISIS, the Taliban, and the Wagner Group are included for their deliberate targeting of religious groups through inhumane tactics like torture, prolonged detention, or other denials of basic human rights, to name a few.

For the full text of the letter, click HERE.

For Rep. Salazar’s remarks about the persecution of Catholics in Nicaragua earlier this year, click HERE.

There are 450,000 Nicaraguan Americans living in the United States, and Congresswoman Salazar represents over 30,000 of them in Florida’s 27th congressional district.

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