Mauricio Alonso Prieto, a Nicaraguan human rights defender and opposition leader, was taken into custody, along with his wife and son, during a raid on his home by masked men on the night of July 17.
Alonso had been the most recent president of the Sandinista Renewal Movement, or currently known as UNAMOS, Renovadora Democrática Unión, an opposition group to the ruling Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua. The group is located in the Department of Carazo and argues for religious freedom in a country where religious leaders and the Catholic Church in Managua have undergone an intensifying persecution in recent years by the 40-year dictatorship.
Alonso’s wife was later released by authorities the same day the family was detained. However, Alonso and his son were to remain in custody for another month when his wife received a call from the Institute of Forensic Medicine informing her to come and pick up her husband’s body.
According to sources close to the family, Alonso was being monitored by government officials and followed back to his home daily. “Before his arrest, the police “visited his home, just like they do with everyone else. He had to report, he was being monitored… he couldn’t leave the country,” the source emphasized”, wrote one local news outlet, Confidencial.
Alonso’s wife, accompanied by other relatives, traveled to the capital of Managua to retrieve her husband’s body. After the handover was completed, authorities then ordered Alonso’s corpse to an “express” burial.
Nicaragua’s national police then proceeded to escort the shuttle van transporting the body of Mauricio Alonso to the city of Jinotepe in the Carazo Department, where Alonso’s family resides.
Alonso’s casket had been sealed by authorities to prevent the family from observing the corpse.
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs issued a statement yesterday, the 25th of August, on its X account, condemning the Ortega-Murillo regime of Nicaragua after the announcement of the death of Mauricio Alonso:
“Horrified by the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship’s inhumanity, as authorities returned the lifeless body of Mauricio Alonso, a Nicaraguan defender of religious freedom, to his family today. The dictatorship unjustly detained and held Alonso incommunicado for a month, until his death. This tragedy happened under Murillo-Ortega’s watch. The United States will neither tolerate such cruelty nor forget this crime.”
The son of Alonso, who had been taken with his family and held when his mother had been released, is still imprisoned without explanation from the Nicaraguan government.
The widow of Mauricio Alonso is avoiding any comments or interviews with media outlets at this moment for fear of further reprisals and for any costs that her son may yet still incur.
