This is a timeline of the 2020 Nicaraguan protests, covering events from February to December 2020.
Timeline by month
February On February 4, 2020, it was reported that the paper and ink of the newspaper La Prensa (which had been held at customs) were released. The newspaper confirmed that, with the assistance of the apostolic nuncio, a communication channel was established with the General Directorate of Customs (DGA) to facilitate the delivery of the retained material.
On February 25, opposition sectors founded the National Coalition at the Hispamer Bookstore auditorium in Managua, despite a police presence outside. Early that morning, the Nicaraguan police blocked all entrances to Managua in anticipation of a demonstration demanding the release of political prisoners. Police confiscated private vehicles and buses at checkpoints, questioning people about their reasons for visiting the capital.https://ondalocal.com.ni/noticias/835-policia-orteguista- asedia-militariza-managua / Protesters and journalists were attacked by police and groups of Sandinistas.
March On March 3, followers of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) disrupted the funeral of poet and revolutionary priest Ernesto Cardenal at the Cathedral of Managua. Worshipers reported insults, theft, and aggression, starting while Bishop Rolando Álvarez was speaking and escalating towards the end of the mass. At least one young opponent and four journalists were assaulted, and some journalists having their equipment stolen. Government supporters occupied the benches on the left side and around the church, where they chanted slogans and insults at relatives, friends, and opponents attending the mass. The mass, led by apostolic nuncio Waldemar Stanislaw, was disrupted by Sandinista supporters shouting slogans such as "Support coup d'état, criminals, free country or die! Long live Sandino!" and carrying FSLN flags and handkerchiefs as Cardenal's family tried to remove his coffin from the cathedral after the mass. Unable to leave by the front door, they had to take the coffin out from the side of the cathedral. As the coffin was being transported, government supporters and journalists harassed Gioconda Belli and other attendees. Diplomats and cultural figures witnessed the incidents. Two days later, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned the Nicaraguan National Police (NNP) and three of its commissioners as "responsible for human rights abuses in Nicaragua".
On March 18, Rosario Murillo confirmed Nicaragua's first case of COVID-19 as a Nicaraguan man who had recently traveled to Panama. Two days later, a second case of COVID-19 was confirmed in a Nicaraguan who had recently traveled to Colombia. Nicaragua took fewer government actions to address the pandemic than its neighbors, allowing major sporting events and the annual Easter celebrations as usual. The country's health minister justified the decision by stressing the need to support the Nicaraguan economy after the recession caused by protests during the two previous years.
July According to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH), witnesses and José Luis Rugama Rizo's family, Rugama Rizo was assassinated when he left his house with a blue-and-white face mask and shouted "Viva Nicaragua libre" to a Sandinista caravan after Ortega's July 19 speech in Estelí, in northern Nicaragua. During his funeral the following day, a house belonging to Rugama Rizo's family was burned; a fundraising campaign began to help the family. On July 21, the Nicaraguan Police identified Abner Onell Pineda Castellon as the main suspect in Rugama Rizo's murder.
Released prisoner and youth leader Bayron Estrada posted on social media that his family continued to be harassed by the Sandinista police. Former political prisoner and professor Juan Bautista Guevara condemned the escalation of harassment by the Nicaraguan police and paramilitaries in his home since his 2019 release under the Amnesty Law to the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH). According to Guevara, he and his family were subjected to police harassment "every day and at all hours"; people entering and leaving his house were photographed, and guns were pointed at them.
Nicaraguan journalist Gerall Chávez said that an anonymous threat was sent to his relatives in Carazo Department. Radio Corporación journalist and sports reporter Julio "El Porteño" Jarquín criticized police presence outside his home. During the afternoon of July 25, police gathered for hours outside Radio Darío in León; chief of police Fidel Domínguez posted police officers on every corner leading to the station. Social media reported that a group of police officers from the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo administration, commanded by Domínguez, stole a motorcycle and a car belonging to Radio Darío employees. The station, east of the Óscar Danilo Rosales Argüello Hospital, was besieged for more than nine hours before the theft of the motor vehicles was recorded. The Nicaraguan Independent Press forum demanded the cessation of attacks and intimidation of the press by the Ortega Murillo dictatorship throughout the country.
Vice president Rosario Murillo confirmed that the 41st anniversary of the Sandinista revolution would be observed virtually due to "difficulties in these times" (referring to the COVID-19 pandemic), with concerts and other activities. A platform would be placed in Managua to celebrate the anniversary. Opponents of the regime proposed a counter-march for July 19, with blue-and-white flags competing with the red-and-black FSLN flag, commemorating victims of the 2018 anti-government protests.
Attacks on the Catholic Church
At dawn on July 20, an intoxicated man broke into a van at Managua's Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and vandalized it. On July 25, Our Lord of Veracruz Church pastor Pablo Antonio Villafranca Martínez condemned sacrilege and robbery in the El Carmen Chapel. On the church's website, Villafranca Martínez posted: "We will have to replace microphones, cables, amplifiers, speakers, locks, padlocks, piggy banks and repair everything. We have nothing but tears, helplessness, pain and frustration."
On July 29, the Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socorro chapel in Nindirí, Masaya was desecrated with "fury and hatred"; unknown vandals stole the chapel's ciborium, broke images, trampled hosts and caused other damage. Jesús Silva, a priest in the Santa Ana parish to which the chapel belongs, reported the incident on social media.
An unidentified man threw a firebomb into a chapel of Managua's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on July 31, severely damaging it (including a devotional image of Christ more than three centuries old). The attack was described as an "act of terrorism" by Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes. The incident occurred in the morning, when only two people were in the chapel. According to Rosario Murillo, "a fire" occurred because "our people are very devoted"; there were many candles in the chapel, and a curtain caught fire. Brenes refuted Murillo, saying that "our chapel has no curtains and has no candles". Brenes connected the fire with a July 20 incident in which a man in a van destroyed the cathedral gates and the theft of a fence, allowing the bomber to escape. A woman who worked at the cathedral told a local television station that a young man asked where the chapel was before she heard an explosion and saw the man jump over a church wall.
Opposition reaction
The Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) party condemned the attacks against the Catholic Church, including the burning of the Chapel of the Blood of Christ in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua: "We absolutely condemn all terrorist attacks and vandalism against temples and churches, now against the Cathedral of Managua, which constitute a flagrant violation of religious freedom, enshrined in the Nicaraguan Constitution " Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) president José Adán Aguerri expressed solidarity on Twitter account with the church: "From COSEP Nicaragua and personally, our solidarity and support for the archdiocese of Managua and the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference [after] the cowardly attack on the Cathedral of Managua that adds to the acts of vandalism in different chapels in the country in previous days. Intolerance will not succeed". The opposition coalition Blue and White National Unity (UNAB) condemned the acts of desecration, siege and harassment against the Catholic Church: "These acts violate freedom of religion provided for in our Constitution. These events, in addition to being targeted attacks, demonstrate the levels of insecurity experienced by the population at the national level ... The evidence shows that the attacks are being committed by people related to the criminal dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, who maintains a permanent political campaign against priests and the Church. We stand in solidarity with the Catholic Church and the devout and Christian people of our country, in the face of such acts of desecration". In a statement, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) repudiated the chapel firebombing: "We demand that the authorities investigate the facts with celerity and find the guilty, [or] we will suppose that it was the Ortega-Murillo regime who gave the order to burn down the chapel to continue its campaign of hatred and terror against churches, religion and believers". member of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy member Juan Sebastian Chamorro condemned the attack on Twitter; Father Edwin Roman also condemned the attack, saying that images could be burned but faith and dignity could not be taken from the people. Auxiliary bishop of Managua Silvio Báez tweeted, "We have cried together because of the fire that has occurred in the chapel of the venerated image of the Blood of Christ." Activist Edipcia Dubón denounced the attack. "I urge your Holiness the Pope to denounce the attacks by Daniel Ortega and his paramilitaries against the Catholic Church, the bishops and priests and the terrorist acts against the Cathedral of Managua," demanded Bianca Jagger. The Evangelical Alliance of Nicaragua also condemned the attack.
Ortega avoided mentioning the attack when he commemorated the 41st anniversary of the Nicaraguan Army Air Force. Nine hours after the firebombing, the Nicaraguan National Police issued a statement suggesting that an "alcohol spray" could have caused the fire; a plastic spray bottle in good condition (unaffected by fire) was found at the scene.
International reaction The Panamanian Episcopal Conference rejected the July 31 act of "vandalism" in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua, when a man threw an explosive device which caused its chapel to catch fire. "It causes us deep pain and outrage, seeing how the sensitivity of the Nicaraguan people to such destruction caused by a bomb that burned the chapel of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua has been wounded", the conference said in a statement. United States Ambassador to Nicaragua Kevin K. Sullivan "condemned the attack" as "one of the series of deplorable attacks on Catholic temples in different parts" of the country. In a statement, the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) condemned the events in Managua: "We condemn this and any act of sacrilege or desecration that threatens the spiritual life of the faithful and the evangelizing work of the Church, especially in these difficult times of pandemic that we have to live".