{"id":24717,"date":"2026-04-01T18:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=24717"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:21:11","slug":"religious-freedom-violations-increasing-in-nicaragua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=24717","title":{"rendered":"Religious freedom violations increasing in Nicaragua"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                            <span class=\"credit\">\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has issued a new report warning of a deterioration of religious freedom in Nicaragua.<\/p>\n<p>The report has showed a significant increase in alleged violations of religious freedom, rising from 222 cases in 2024 to 309 cases last year. The group said that many violations were probably going unreported due to a \u201cclimate of fear\u201d created by the government.<\/p>\n<p>Many religious leaders in Nicaragua are subject to \u201cprecautionary measures\u201d that require them to report weekly to the police and to seek permission to conduct various religious activities.<\/p>\n<p>Some pastors have also been\u00a0detained by police for significant periods of time. Furthermore, reports have suggested that the Nicaraguan government has banned international visitors from bringing Bibles into the country.<\/p>\n<p>One pastor, Efr\u00e9n Antonio V\u00edlchez L\u00f3pez, has been sentenced to 23 years in jail on what human rights groups say were \u201ctrumped up\u201d charges. His real \u201ccrime\u201d is believed to be criticism of the current Nicaraguan government.<\/p>\n<p>According to Open Doors, Nicaragua is the 32nd worst persecutor of Christians in the world, with the situation having deteriorated significantly since 2018 when there were a series of anti-government protests.<\/p>\n<p>Leader Anna Lee Stangl, Director of Advocacy and Americas Team at CSW, said, \u201cFor 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.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While in some ways the regime has changed its strategies \u2013 releasing political prisoners into house arrest as opposed to forcing them into exile, for example \u2013 its primary goal remains the same: to control, coopt or eliminate anyone it deems a threat to its authority and survival.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe international community must do more to support and strengthen independent voices in the country, including those of religious groups, and, in light of Nicaragua\u2019s own unresponsiveness to international communications, it should consider holding other states that support the regime to account.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock) Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has issued a new report warning of a deterioration of religious freedom in Nicaragua. The report has showed a significant increase in alleged violations of religious freedom, rising from 222 cases in 2024 to 309 cases last year. The group said that many violations were probably going unreported due<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[92,5220,3464,91,173],"class_list":["post-24717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-freedom","tag-increasing","tag-nicaragua","tag-religious","tag-violations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}