Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies of reports that eight priests previously under house arrest have been transferred to El Chipote prison in Nicaragua, in the context of human rights.

Reports of harassment and arbitrary detention, including against the church and its representatives, represent an unacceptable degradation of Nicaraguans' civil, political, and other human rights. Acts by the Ortega Government to restrict these rights, including the arrest of clergy, confiscation of Church property and the rescinding of legal permits and operating licences for Church affiliated institutions are of deep concern. We continue to call for the immediate and unconditional release of affected clergy and all others wrongly deprived of their freedom in Nicaragua.