Civil Rights Suspended by Nicaragua

President Daniel Ortega announced Tuesday night that his government has suspended a number of civil rights because of “the U.S. government’s criminal and aggressive policy” toward Nicaragua.

Ortega signed a decree extending for a year an official state of emergency that was first imposed in March, 1982. The state of emergency was eased in July, 1984, when the government reinstated several guarantees of citizens’ rights.

The new decree, however, suspends the guarantees that had been restored.

They include the right of free expression, public assembly, unrestricted movement within the country and mail privacy. Also suspended are the right to organize labor unions and to strike, the right to a speedy trial and the right to appeal judicial sentences.

The decree permits authorities to search homes and make detentions without warrants.

Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes said it also will toughen censorship of the news media. The opposition newspaper La Prensa already was required to submit articles for censorship before publication, but some material critical of the government has been allowed.

The state of emergency was imposed--and has been repeatedly extended--on the grounds that it is needed to defend the Sandinista government against U.S.-supported guerrillas, called contras.

The restrictions on liberties were eased last year during campaigning for presidential elections, which Ortega won. They were the first elections held since Sandinista guerrillas seized power in a 1979 insurrection.

Ortega said Tuesday night that in addition to support for the contras--including $27 million in non-military aid approved by Congress in June--the United States holds Central American military maneuvers near Nicaragua that “threaten us constantly with direct military intervention.”

He also charged that “agents of imperialism” inside Nicaragua work through political parties, news media and church organizations to destabilize the country and sabotage the revolution.

“The government and the heroic people . . . cannot permit that these activities of sabotage and political destabilization, directed by the government of the United States, continue to be carried out with impunity,” he said.

Therefore, he said, the new emergency decree was signed.

In another development, Nicaraguan security agents confiscated the first issue of a Roman Catholic Church newsletter over the weekend and later seized the Managua church office where it was printed.

The newsletter, called Iglesia (Church), included criticism of the leftist Sandinista government for drafting 11 seminary students into the army, for raiding the Catholic radio station to censor broadcasts and for expelling 10 foreign priests from the country.

A church spokesman said policemen with automatic rifles later stood guard outside the church office and that Msgr. Bosco Vivas, the auxiliary bishop of Managua, was ordered to leave the building.

The Interior Ministry said the newsletter was published without legal authorization, and contained “highly political” material.