Christians face increasing repression in Nicaragua: report
The Nicaraguan government subjected Christians to mounting repression throughout 2025, a new report documenting 309 separate violations of freedom of religion or belief in the country during the year has found.
Of the 309 cases, 200 involved Roman Catholics and 108 involved Protestant Christians, including Seventh-day Adventists, according to the report covering the calendar year 2025, published by the U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
The government of Co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo imposed “precautionary measures” on 36 religious leaders in 2025, more than triple the number documented the year before, the report reveals. Under these measures, religious leaders were required to report weekly in person to local police stations, disclose their planned activities and obtain prior authorization before leaving their municipality.
Threats and harassment featured in 228 of the 309 cases, allegedly carried out by government officials or their surrogates, including pro-government activists and paramilitaries.
The government continued to strip independent civil society organizations of their legal status, bringing the cumulative total of organizations made illegal to upwards of 5,600, according to CSW. In 2025 alone, at least 18 were of a religious nature or affiliated with a religious group, among them, 15 Protestant and three Roman Catholic institutions.
The Association of Independent Fundamentalist Baptists lost its legal status in February 2025. Other affected bodies included schools, religious radio and television outlets, and faith-based charities, including Lutheran World Relief and Food for the Hungry.
Religious orders faced particular targeting during the year.
On Jan. 28, as many as 30 nuns from three religious orders based in Managua, Chinandega and Matagalpa departments were forced to leave Nicaragua. In December, eight women from the Capuchin Tertiary Religious Sisters of the Holy Family in Madriz Department were ordered out immediately and taken to the El Espino border crossing with Honduras.
Arbitrary detention of religious leaders was documented in 55 cases, ranging from a few hours to several years. Among those detained was Pastor Rudy Palacios Vargas, founder of La Roca de Nicaragua Church Association in the Carazo Department, who has been a target of the government since 2018.
On July 17, 2025, police arrested the pastor along with his sister, two brothers-in-law, a church worship team member and a family friend who also served as a church deacon. Mauricio Alonso Petri, a political activist and friend of the pastor who also served as a church deacon, died in custody in August that year; his family received no explanation for his death and was not permitted to hold an autopsy.
The government has also prohibited the ordination of new Catholic priests and deacons in the dioceses of Jinotega, Siuna, Matagalpa and Estelí, according to a previous news report. Local leaders say police are preventing any outside bishop from conducting ordination rites in those dioceses.
An estimated 70% of clergy in Matagalpa have been forced into exile. Researcher Martha Patricia Molina, author of the research report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church,” has previously termed ordination efforts a “liturgical oasis” in the desert of repression.
Violations of freedom of assembly were documented in 33 cases spanning 10 departments, including the arbitrary cancellation of vigils, youth retreats and prayer breakfasts, according to the CSW report.
In September 2025, police officers surrounded a large Protestant church mid-Sunday service and ordered those present to leave, with the police chief stating the building would be well-suited for a police station.
The report adds that transit companies entering Nicaragua by land were informed by the government in 2025 that Bibles and other religious literature were to be added to a list of prohibited items that also included perishable food and drones. Multiple individuals reported being questioned at the border about whether they were carrying Bibles or religious literature; in some cases, the items were confiscated.
Protestant pastor the Rev. Efrén Antonio Vílchez López has been imprisoned since 2022, when a court sentenced him to 23 years after convicting him of the sexual assault of a minor. The report said courts refused to consider evidence supporting his innocence, including CCTV footage placing him away from the location where the crime was alleged to have occurred.
In July 2024, he was transferred to a maximum-security cell in La Modelo prison. On Dec. 16, 2024, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a request for urgent precautionary measures on his behalf after the Nicaraguan government failed to respond to an earlier inquiry.
The Ortega-Murillo government has remained unresponsive to communications from the United Nations and the Organization of American States and has left the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The church in Nicaragua has remained one of the few institutions openly critical of Ortega’s government. During mass protests in 2018 against pension reforms, clergy condemned police violence against students.
