(Reuters) – Nicaraguan police arrested another Catholic bishop on Wednesday, local media reported, making him the second high-ranking church prelate to be detained in the government’s prolonged crackdown on Catholic institutions and its leaders in the Central American country.
Local news outlets Despacho 505 and La Prensa reported that police arrested Bishop Isidro Mora of the Siuna diocese, located along the country’s northern Caribbean coast, for the crime of praying for his fellow detained bishop, Rolando Alvarez.
Reuters has not been able to independently confirm Mora’s arrest.
The jailed Alvarez is Nicaragua’s most prominent critic of President Daniel Ortega.
He was detained last year after leading mass gatherings and earlier this year sentenced to 26 years in prison on treason charges after he refused to be expelled to the United States.
Formal ties between Nicaragua’s government and the Vatican were severed this year after Pope Francis derided Ortega’s government as a dictatorship.
(Reporting by Ismael Lopez; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Sarah Morland)
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