CSW has today released a new report on Nicaragua which finds that the government has increasingly imposed measures on religious leaders requiring them to make weekly reports to local police stations and seek permission from the authorities for a range of activities, amid continued, egregious and widespread violations of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB).
The report, titled ‘No Respite: Another Year of Increasing Repression in Nicaragua’, highlights that CSW recorded 309 separate FoRB cases in 2025, an increase from 222 recorded in 2024. Most cases involved multiple FoRB violations and many affected large numbers of people, with the report also emphasising that a significant percentage of violations likely goes unreported due to the climate of fear created by the government of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo.
In addition to the increased imposition of so-called ‘precautionary measures’ on religious leaders, the report details how the government has continued to prohibit public religious activities, to monitor activities inside religious buildings, to arbitrarily detain religious leaders and members of religion or belief communities, and to forcibly cancel the legal status of hundreds of independent civil society organisations, including religious institutions.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to create an illusion of general respect for FoRB, the government co-opted some religious festivals and traditions, and exempted some groups aligned with and supportive of the government from prohibitions on religious activities in public.
The report specifically highlights the case of Protestant Pastor Rudy Palacios Vargas, who was detained alongside six of his friends and family on 17 July 2025. No information as to any of the group’s whereabouts was provided to their family members for all six months of their detention, and one of them, Mauricio Alonso Petri, died in detention in August 2025. In January 2026 Pastor Palacios, his sister and brother-in-law were released into house arrest, while the three others were released under precautionary measures.
The report also highlights the cases of Protestant Pastor Efrén Antonio Vílchez López, a political prisoner who is serving a 23-year sentence on trumped up charges, and Roman Catholic lay leaders Carmen María Sáenz Martínez and Lesbia del Socorro Gutiérrez Poveda, who were released into house arrest in November 2025 after spending over a year in incommunicado detention.
CSW’s Director of Advocacy and Americas Team Leader 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, coopt 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.’
Notes to Editors: