The persecution of the dictatorial regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo pushed Nicaragua to rank fourth on the list of the most dangerous countries for Christians in Latin America, only surpassed by Mexico, Colombia and Cuba. At a global level, the Central American nation slipped into 50th place on the 2023 World Chase List, prepared by the organization Puertas Abiertas.
The NGO explains that the Managua regime considers churches that denounce the “injustices and human rights violations committed by the government” as “destabilizing agents”. This situation has made the Nicaraguan Catholic Church a “target of hostility, which can include intimidation, harassment, surveillance, arrests and even attacks.”
“The government is especially hostile to churches that provided shelter and care for people during the widespread protests that erupted against the country’s dictatorial regime in 2018. To this day, these churches continue to face government reprisals, including slander and vigilance”, highlights Puertas Abiertas in the chapter on Nicaragua.
The organization highlights that attacks on the Church have been increasing since the April 2018 crisis. In that year, the bishops mediated a failed national dialogue, which was called at the request of the dictatorship.
“…President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have vigorously tried to silence dissenting voices, especially the church given its influence in the country. Christian schools and television channels have been closed, as well as denominational charities, and believers have been arbitrarily detained and prosecuted », he denounces.
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According to the NGO, all this action by the regime is with the objective of “silencing the Christian voice and making them lose credibility among the population”, a premise that the dictatorship has not achieved in all these years because the Catholic hierarchs enjoy wide sympathy among the population.
Priests and bishop imprisoned
In Nicaragua, the Ortega regime keeps more than 12 religious, lay people, priests, seminarians and journalists of the Catholic Church in prison for allegedly committing common crimes or treason against the homeland as a conspiracy to undermine national integrity and propagate news false, both crimes were invented in two repressive laws used by the dictatorship to persecute opponents and religious.
The lawyer, human rights defender and author of the report «Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?»Martha Patricia Molina, has documented the attacks that the Catholic Church has been a victim of since April 2018, which at the end of 2022, already add up to 410 violations of religious freedom in the country, committed by the Ortega and Murillo regime.
