A report by the United Nations’ Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, published publicly earlier this month, details systematic abuses by the Nicaraguan government against civilians, religious leaders, the media, and civil society organizations. 

“The Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua concludes,” the report said, that the Nicaraguan government is responsible for “serious, systematic and widespread human rights violations — some amounting to crimes against humanity.” 

Elsewhere in the report, the authors express concern about the rising pattern of government repression, especially on the Catholic church, and urge the ruling Ortega-Murillo regime to begin reform by — among other things — “ceasing the persecution of members of the Catholic and other Christian churches, ensuring full respect for the right to freedom of religion.”  

Just days after the report was released publicly, the Nicaraguan government prohibited the ordination of Catholic priests across several dioceses. The dioceses — Jinotega, Siuna, Matagalpa, and Estelí — are currently without a resident bishop due to government persecution of the church. In Matagalpa, an estimated 70% of clergy have been forced into exile. 

According to the media, the Nicaraguan Ministry of the Interior has revoked the legal status of over 1,500 civil society organizations, including many Catholic and evangelical organizations with ties to the church. In many of these cases, authorities have seized property and other assets and prosecuted leadership with an array of legal charges. 

The Ortega regime has aggressively targeted the Catholic church in Nicaragua since 2019, when some churches decided to shelter student protestors from police brutality. Seen as an organized force and a threat to the president’s total control of the country, the church has faced an unrelenting barrage of legal challenges and watched as many of its leaders have been imprisoned or exiled. 

Even in exile, these leaders experience constant pressure and repression, with the Ortega regime threatening to punish family members, friends, and parishioners should they speak out in America or elsewhere. The most recent U.N. report details misappropriation of public funds to finance these transnational repression operations.  

Nicaragua withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council in February 2025, days after a group of U.N. experts released a strongly worded report rebuking it for systematically cracking down on human rights, democratic norms, and religious groups. 

“We are seeing the methodical repression of anyone who dares to challenge Ortega and Murillo’s grip on power,” said Ariela Peralta, an expert who contributed to the report. “This is a government at war with its own people.” 

The Ortega regime claims that the U.N. and the Organization of American States, both of which have issued statements opposing Nicaragua’s crackdown on religious groups, are part of an international smear campaign against it. Murillo denounced the U.N. report as “falsehoods” and “slander.” 

The U.S. Department of State added Nicaragua to the Special Watchlist (SWL) of countries with particularly severe violations of religious freedom in 2019. This designation remained in place until 2022, when it was elevated to the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) list. The latter designation indicates increased concern about the state of religious freedom in Nicaragua and normally entails certain legislatively mandated consequences, including sanctions. 

“Catholic clergy and laity [continue] to experience government harassment,” said a U.S. State Department publication, citing media reports, “including slander, arbitrary investigations by government agencies based on charges that clergy and laity said were unfounded, withholding of tax exemptions, and denial of religious services for political prisoners.”  

USCIRF similarly began including Nicaragua in its report in 2020, recommending that it be added to the SWL, and upgraded its recommendation to the CPC list in 2023.