Brazil opens its doors to persecuted Catholics in Nicaragua, says Bolsonaro

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro offered Tuesday (Sept. 20) before the United Nations General Assembly to “open its doors” to Catholic religious “persecuted” by the “dictatorial” regime of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

“Brazil is opening its doors to welcome Catholic priests and nuns who the dictatorial regime of Nicaragua has persecuted,” Bolsonaro said at the United Nations (UN) podium in his speech and declared himself an “unconditional defender” of freedom of expression and religious rights in his country.

He said his government has worked to put the right to religious freedom at the center of the international human rights agenda, an “essential” guarantee that “everyone has the right to profess and practice their religious orientation without discrimination.”

Brazil, traditionally the first country to speak at the opening of the General Assembly, which began Tuesday in New York, “rejects religious persecution anywhere in the world.”

Bolsonaro presented to the delegations of the 193 UN countries a Brazil that will “fully recover” by the end of 2022 and whose poverty is “declining at an accelerated pace,” despite the strain of the war in Ukraine that is keeping the global economy in check.

He also stressed that his country has taken in more than 350,000 Venezuelans “fleeing violence and hunger,” as well as Haitians, Syrians, Afghans, and Ukrainians.