Nicaragua’s Radio Maria broadcasting station faces closure after its legal status was revoked by the country's dictatorial regime.
On 9 July, the administration of President Daniel Ortega abolished the legal status of the major Catholic radio station in the Central American country, along with 11 other religious and civic associations, based on their alleged failure to provide the government with financial reports for up to 26 years, as well as information about their directors.
The cancelation of legal status in effect means the organisations can no longer function independently and become chattels of the State.
Part of the same-named and hugely popular international Catholic radio network, Radio Maria Nicaragua has been legally established in the country since 2000. <br><br><strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/radio-maria-and-the-biggest-daily-parish-in-the-uk/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Radio Maria and the biggest daily parish in the UK</mark></a></strong>
The regime's decree affirmed that the radio station failed to provide its financial information concerning the period between 2019-2023 to the authorities. The tenure of the station’s board of directors was alleged to have expired in November of 2021.
The announcement came only a day after the radio station began to air speeches of first lady and vice president Rosario Murillo.
As a result of losing their legal status, the properties and goods of the 12 organisations impacted could be transferred to the State. The document was signed by Minister of Interior María Amelia Coronel Kinloch, once called by the Nicaraguan newspaper <em>La Prensa</em> the “minister of confiscations".
Radio Maria Nicaragua had been under pressure from the regime since April this year, when one of its directors was informed that the station’s bank accounts had been blocked. On 26 June, the radio announced that it would begin to broadcast its shows only between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m., and that night shows would only be transmitted through the internet.
Radio Maria Nicaragua is part of the international broadcasting network that was founded in the Diocese of Milan, Italy, in 1983. In 1990, it became a nation-wide radio broadcaster in Italy. Eight years later, the World Family of Radio Maria was formed.
According to the network’s website, it’s now present in 84 nations across the five continents and has 129 broadcasting stations. Twenty-five of them are in the Americas. The World Family of Radio Maria is not directly connected to any ecclesiastical body and is not directly funded by the Church, rather by listener donations.
In Nicaragua, Radio Maria began as an AM radio station. In 2006, it finally obtained two FM concessions, one in Managua and the other in León, Chinandega and Rivas. Radio Maria’s Nicaraguan website states that its shows are mostly produced by volunteers, although the station also has a permanent team of workers.
It’s not clear yet if the regime will immediately close Radio Maria, said Álvaro Leiva Sánchez, leader of the Nicaraguan Association for the Defense of Human Rights (known by the Spanish acronym ANPDH), and who is in exile in Costa Rica.
“The dictatorship is so rooted now in Nicaragua that with or without a legal status, any radio station can be invaded and closed at any moment,” he told <em>Crux</em>.
Leiva Sánchez said that the right to religious freedom and association has been systematically suppressed in the country by Ortega’s regime, “and any voice, religious or lay, that disturbs in any sense the government will fatally be silenced".
“Unfortunately, the Nicaraguan clergy has not the strength to have an impact on society as it used to have in the past. It’s not in the position to defend the rights of Nicaraguans anymore,” Leiva Sánchez said.
In his opinion, he explained, the Vatican has failed to act in defence of Nicaragua’s Church in the face of “a permanent socio-political and humanitarian crisis generated by a repressive regime".
He added: “The Nicaraguan priests were abandoned."<br><br><strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/nicaragua-the-land-where-beauty-queens-are-persecuted-and-spies-film-homilies-of-priests/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">A Nicaraguan exile on a dictatorship that oppresses both the Catholic Church and a Miss Universe winner</mark></a></strong>
The other 11 organisations impacted by the decree include Asociación Iglesia Cristiana Principe de Paz Casa de Oración (Association of the Christian Church Prince of Peace House of Prayer), Asociación de Iglesias Evangélicas de Nicaragua Fuente de Jacob (Association of Evangelical Churches of Nicaragua Fountain of Jacob), Asociación Ministerio Apostólico Profético Fuego Pentecostés (Association of the Prophetic Apostolic Ministry Pentecostal Fire), and various entities of an economic or civic nature.
Last week, a priest of Indigenous origin who was in the United States for missionary work was prevented by the Ortega regime from returning to Nicaragua. Father Rodolfo French Naar received a message from the airline telling him that the Nicaraguan immigration authorities wouldn't allow him back into the country.
According to lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan activist exiled in the US who has been monitoring Ortega’s attacks on the Catholic Church, the number of priests persecuted by Ortega’s regime has been continuously increasing. She has said that she is aware of 12 priests that have either had to escape from Nicaragua in fear of their lives or who were prevented from returning to the country after traveling abroad.
“Unfortunately, nothing indicates to us that something will change in the near future,” Leiva Sánchez said.<br><br><em>Photo: Radio Maria headquarters in Nicaragua. (Credit: Radio Maria; via Crux.)</em>
