Nicaraguan Bishop goes on indefinite hunger strike

By James Blears

Rolando Alvarez is the Bishop of Matagalpa, which has a population of 109,000 people and is the seventh largest city in Nicaragua, located in the centre of the country.

He says the Nicaraguan Police have been following and shadowing him non-stop. This even continued when he was visiting his niece.

Bishop Alvarez, who's a stern critic of President Daniel Ortega's Sandanista Government, which has arrested dozens of opposition politicians, is demanding the release of all political prisoners.

He's now saying that he will continue his hunger strike until the police, who've told him they're only obeying orders, promise to respect the privacy of his family and back off. 

Other Priests are reporting similar types of harassment. 

Nicaragua's Congress, which is dominated by the Sandanista Party, has already threatened to imprison Catholic priests who question or defy their authority.

Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, the Archbishop of the capital, Managua, insists that the Church isn't the enemy of the government and will pray for them.