Pedro Gutiérrez

Pedro Gutiérrez: imprisoned for demanding the release of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez

It was February 10, 2023. In the streets of oppressed Managua a cry broke the silence: “Courage, strength and faith always. Freedom for Monsignor Rolando Alvarez!” A person with a white guayabera, a rosary in his hands, and a prosthesis on his right leg was asking for justice for Monsignor Rolando Alvarez. It was Pedro Gutiérrez, a political prisoner who hours later would be persecuted and arrested for the second time.

The day before, the Ortega-Murillo regime had banished 222 people to the United States after keeping them imprisoned for political reasons for months and even years. That same day, Monsignor Rolando Alvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Pedro was outraged. 

“Courage, strength and faith always. Freedom for Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, although the dictatorship has given him 26 years in prison, we consider Rolando Álvarez a priest of the people. Long live free Nicaragua! Freedom for Monsignor Rolando Álvarez and the remaining political prisoners! Long live free Nicaragua!” Pedro is heard saying in a video that circulated on social networks. 

Two days later, a group of paramilitaries arrived violently at his home in Bello Horizonte to arrest him. His family did not hear from him for 40 days and it was not until March 6 that they learned that he was being charged with “treason”, a crime charged by the regime against those it identifies as opponents. 

Pedro Gutierrez is an industrial mechanic and actively participated in the civic protests in April 2018. This was enough for the regime to arrest him and charge him with robbery and kidnapping. 

Like others, he was released in 2019 after the approval of the Amnesty Law and maintained minor exposure, until he again decided to take to the streets to demonstrate against another injustice, this time, against Monsignor Rolando Alvarez. 

After being detained on February 12, he was not allowed a visit from his family until March 29, through a glass window, and there they realized that his situation was precarious and that he is kept in a punishment cell where he is handcuffed all the time. 

As in other cases, it was not even known with which charges he was being accused by the prosecutor Luis Carlos González Roblero before Judge Karen Chavarría. 

Pedro Gutiérrez did not commit any crime. Demanding the release of Monsignor Alvarez and any person arbitrarily detained for political reasons is not punishable by law, and using that right, he expressed himself at the cost of his own freedom. 

Therefore, Pedro is deprived of his freedom for political reasons, forced to remain in jail as part of the repressive strategy promoted by the Ortega-Murillo regime. 

Freedom for Pedro Gutiérrez! 

We demand that the Ortega-Murillo regime Free Nicas Now!