SAN JOSE (Reuters) - Nicaraguan police detained on Thursday two senior Catholic priests who are close to the country's top church leader, a person with knowledge of the matter said, raising to at least six the number of clergymen detained this week.
The source, who declined to be named for fear of arrest, said the two priests were detained for publicly praying for jailed Bishop Rolando Alvarez, the most prominent critic of President Daniel Ortega.
Local media outlet Confidencial named the priests as Carlos Aviles and Hector Treminio, and noted that their arrest brings to at least six the number of priests detained over the past week, adding that two of the clerics had already been released.
The government's press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Over the past few years, Ortega's government has targeted members of the Catholic church, a crackdown officials have in the past said was needed to punish treasonous behavior or other alleged crimes.
Aviles is the second-highest ranking cleric in the Archdiocese of Managua, led by Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, while Treminio is its treasurer.
Alvarez, the bishop of Matagalpa, forcefully criticized the government's deadly response to mass protests that broke out in 2018, and was convicted of treason and sentenced to a 26-year prison term earlier this year.
Last week, police arrested Bishop Isidro Mora of the Siuna diocese, making him the second bishop to be detained after Alvarez's detention in 2022.
Many of the latest clergymen detained were arrested because they publicly offered prayers for Alvarez, according to the source and local media, but the government has not issued any statements explaining the priests' alleged crimes.
Nicaraguan Bishop Silvio Baez, who has been living in exile in Florida since 2019 and is the second-ranking leader of the archdiocese, called for the priests to be released.
"I ask God to protect them and that they be freed immediately!" wrote in a post on X on Thursday.
According to exiled Nicaraguan researcher Martha Patricia Molina, who publishes records of what she describes as the persecution of the Catholic Church under Ortega, the number of bishops, priests and seminarians behind bars in the country currently stands at nine.
(Reporting by Ismael Lopez; Writing by David Alire Garcia and Miral Fahmy)
