The predominantly Catholic people of Nicaragua are facing their fourth year with Holy Week processions completely banned.<\/p>\n
The repressive wave of Daniel Ortega's dictatorship<\/big><\/p>\n Since the return to power of the communist Daniel Ortega in 2007, the country has experienced a drift increasingly similar to that of the socialist dictatorship of Venezuela, with electoral fraud to keep Ortega in power<\/a> and a wave of repression that has increasingly spread to more layers of society. In September 2018, Ortega declared all demonstrations against his government illegal<\/a>, after the violent response unleashed by the regime left 326 protesters dead<\/strong>.<\/p>\n With the support of Vladimir Putin's dictatorship<\/a>, the Ortega regime banned the main opposition party in 2021<\/a>. The ideological fanaticism of that communist dictatorship has also directed all its fury against Christians, with the arrests of Catholic bishops, priests, and seminarians<\/a> (whose whereabouts are unknown in most cases), and the exile of several bishops<\/a> (including the president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference), as well as priests and religious<\/a>, including 18 Missionaries of Charity<\/a>, whose order is dedicated to serving the poorest.<\/p>\n The dictatorship has been banning Holy Week processions for four years<\/big><\/p>\n In February 2023, the Ortega dictatorship also banned all public Holy Week celebrations, a Christian holiday with centuries of tradition in that country.<\/a> This ban remains in place in 2026, for the fourth consecutive year.<\/a> Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Patricia Molina has denounced that between 2019 and July 2025, the dictatorship prohibited 16,564 religious processions and activities<\/a>. The prohibition of these religious acts goes to such extremes that in 2023 a journalist was sentenced to 8 years in prison for covering a Catholic procession<\/a> in defiance of that prohibition, a sentence made under false accusations such as \"spreading false news\"<\/em> and \"conspiracy to commit impairment of national integrity\"<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n The S\u00e1nchez government's silence in the face of this anti-Catholic persecution<\/big><\/p>\n While all this was happening in that Central American country, the reaction of the Prime Minister of Spain has been radically different from his swift condemnation of Israel<\/strong> for suspending celebrations at the holy sites in Jerusalem<\/a> due to attacks by the Iranian dictatorship. On his Twitter account, Pedro S\u00e1nchez has never made a single mention of Nicaragua<\/a> or the dictator Daniel Ortega<\/a>. The fanatical persecution suffered by Catholics in that country seems to matter very little to him, just like the persecution of Christians in other communist dictatorships<\/strong> such as China or North Korea, which the Spanish socialist leader has also never mentioned.<\/p>\n Similarly, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Albares, has not published a single tweet about the persecution of Catholics in Nicaragua<\/a>. However, two days ago, summoned the Israeli charg\u00e9 d'affaires in Spain<\/a> to demand explanations for a security measure affecting Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Jerusalem due to attacks by Iran, an Islamist dictatorship that puts photos of S\u00e1nchez on its missiles<\/a> as a sign of gratitude to the Spanish government for its hostile attitude toward Israel.<\/p>\n S\u00e1nchez's government and Ortega's dictatorship, together in the Hague Group<\/big><\/p>\n In July 2025, the government of Pedro S\u00e1nchez joined the Hague Group to impose an arms embargo on Israel<\/a>. This group, of which Switzerland is not a member despite its misleading name, is a coalition of leftist and Islamist governments, including 14 dictatorships. Among its founders is the communist dictatorship of Cuba, and it has the support of the dictatorship of Nicaragua<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The support of S\u00e1nchez's communist partners for Ortega's dictatorship<\/big><\/p>\n Likewise, the communist faction of the Spanish government has been supporting the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega<\/strong>, as can be seen in the messages published on the Twitter account of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE)<\/a>, the party to which Vice President Yolanda D\u00edaz and Minister Sira Rego belong. Likewise, in December 2020, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress of Deputies approved a condemnation of human rights violations in Nicaragua<\/a>, but Podemos, which was then S\u00e1nchez's government partner, abstained<\/strong>, accusing the parties that supported that condemnation of promoting \"a reactionary agenda\" in Nicaragua.<\/p>\n
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