RESEARCHERS working for the charity Christian Solidarity Worldwide found that there had been a significant increase in 2025 in violations of religious freedom in Nicaragua. These included threats, harassment, restrictions on worship, arbitrary detentions of priests and worshippers, and permanent exile.
Whole religious orders and denominations were stripped of their legal status, including the Association of Independent Fundamentalist Baptists.
CSW argues that this means that pressure should now be put on other states supportive of the regime.
CSW recorded more than 300 cases of alleged abuses last year, compared with 222 in 2024; 200 of these involved Roman Catholics, while 108 involved Protestants. The additional case involved a journalist targeted for their coverage of religious issues.
Religious leaders are subjected to harassment and surveillance by security forces, and many are forced to report weekly to local police stations, CSW says in its report No Respite: Another year of increasing repression in Nicaragua. Religious services were subject to overt and covert monitoring, and informants were planted in Roman Catholic and Protestant churches to report back to the authorities. Any prayers for unity or human rights are considered a criticism of the government of President Ortega and his wife the Co-President, Rosario Murillo.
About 80 per cent of Nicaraguans are either Roman Catholic or Protestant.
Exempt from persecution are religious groups aligned with the government, which has co-opted some faith-based events in an effort to appear open to religious freedom, CSW alleges.
Human rights, including religious freedom, have been reported to be deteriorating for years under President Ortega. Protests begun by students against the government in 2018 were crushed (News, 25 May 2018). The RC Church’s support for protesters and its criticism of the regime have led to increased targeting of clergy and worshippers. The government also continued to shut down civil-society organisations, many of which were affiliated to a religious group. In total, more than 5600 have been banned.
CSW’s report highlights the treatment of the Revd Efrén Antonio Vílchez López, a Protestant pastor who criticised the use of force against protesters in the 2018 demonstrations. He was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a minor — charges that were invented, CSW says — and sentenced to 23 years in prison, where he is held in unsanitary conditions.
Another pastor critical of the government’s use of violence against demonstrators has been held, with family and congregation members, for six months without charge. One of the deacons of the church died in detention. Three have now been released, but are under house arrest.
CSW’s joint director of advocacy, Anna Lee Stangl, said: “For several years now, CSW has documented a continued deterioration in the situation of freedom of religion or belief and other human rights in Nicaragua. 2025 was no different. While in some ways the regime has changed its strategies — releasing political prisoners into house arrest as opposed to forcing them into exile, for example — its primary goal remains the same: to control, co-opt, or eliminate anyone it deems a threat to its authority and survival.
“The international community must do more to support and strengthen independent voices in the country, including those of religious groups, and, in light of Nicaragua’s own unresponsiveness to international communications, it should consider holding other states that support the regime to account.”