Severe Religious Persecution Continues in Nicaragua

Under the regime of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo religious persecution has continued to escalate. On the night of July 17, hooded men, as part of raids conducted ahead of the July 19 anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, stormed the home of religious freedom advocate Mauricio Alonso and arrested him. Cruelly, he died in custody.

In recent years, the July 19 protests have also become a response to government repression and calls for political change under the Ortega-Murillo regime.

The United States is “horrified by the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship's inhumanity, as authorities returned the lifeless body of Mauricio Alonso, a Nicaraguan defender of religious freedom, to his family,” said the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs in a post on X. “The dictatorship unjustly detained and held Alonso incommunicado for a month, until his death.”

Alonso’s relatives searched for him in several prisons and hospitals in the country without obtaining any information about his whereabouts. It was not until August 25 that they received a call from the Institute of Legal Medicine informing them that Alonso’s body would be handed over. After which regime authorities ordered the family to bury him “immediately.”

National Police patrols escorted the minibus that transported Alonso’s body to the cemetery and remained there until the funeral was over.

On the same night as Alonso’s arrest, authorities forced their way into the homes of Pastor Palacios Vargas, his sisters Arely Palacios Vargas and Jéssica Palacios Vargas, and their husbands Pedro José López and Armando José Bermudez Mojica, respectively. They were each arrested and detained. Family friend Olga María Lara Rojas was also arrested, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

CSW Director of Advocacy Anna Lee Stangl said: "The arbitrary detention of Pastor Rudy Palacios Vargas and his friends and family members is the culmination of years of persecution because of his willingness to openly criticize the ongoing grave violations of human rights under the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.” Alonso was a close friend of Pastor Rudy Palacios Vargas.

The tragedy of Alonso’s death “happened under Murillo-Ortega's watch,” the State Department noted. “The United States will neither tolerate such cruelty nor forget this crime.”