Churches lose legal status
Nicaragua’s government has banned at least 18 Christian groups from operating in the country, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide. The report says 15 Protestant groups and 3 Roman Catholic groups lost legal status in 2025. That included schools, faith-based charities, and religious media outlets, the kind of places that usually spend their time helping people instead of causing bureaucratic anxiety. Among the groups named were Lutheran World Relief, Food for the Hungry, and the Independent Fundamentalist Baptists. In a healthy system, a registry protects lawful activity. In a nervous regime, it becomes a switch.
Property, tape, and police stations
The report says the government did not stop at paperwork. In some cases, it took property after revoking legal status. One religious school was allowed to keep operating for nine months after its status was removed, only for leaders to be told it would later become a state school. Instead, the building was used as a police station. A Protestant nonprofit also found its headquarters partially sectioned off with yellow tape, after which officials reportedly told leaders the buildings and their contents now belonged to the attorney general. It is a neat trick: call it law, then keep whatever you want.
Leaders face the questions
Christian leaders have also faced pressure over what they teach and say. CSW said some were questioned about sermons, prayers, and other instruction, while threats were reported after comments seen as critical of the government. In one case, a Roman Catholic priest, Jalder Hernandez, was blocked from boarding a flight to the United States after an email said he could not travel. A journalist and Protestant pastor who wrote about religious issues also faced expulsion. This is what happens when officials decide that disagreement is not just wrong, but unlawful. The state keeps a close eye, and everyone else is expected to pretend that is normal.
Calls to undo the damage
CSW urged Nicaragua to restore citizenship to people who were arbitrarily stripped of it, including those outside the country, and to reinstate the legal status of civil society groups that were made illegal. The group also called for unfreezing bank accounts tied to those organizations. Those requests are not radical. They are the basic repairs a government should make after rummaging through churches, charities, and private property like a suspicious landlord with a badge. When a country starts treating faith groups as enemies and paperwork as punishment, the problem is no longer just religion. It is power.
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