At 6am on 10 August 2024, fifteen police officers wearing ski masks and carrying AK-47s arrested 49-year-old Carmen María Sáenz Martínez at her home in Lomas de Santo Tomas in Matagalpa City, Nicaragua.
Two hours later police in two patrol cars detained Carmen’s colleague Lesbia del Socorro Gutiérrez Poveda, age 58, at the Guadalupana Farm in Samulali in the San Ramón Municipality.
Both women worked with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Matagalpa, formerly led by the now exiled Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, who spent nearly a year and a half in prison before he was expelled to the Vatican in January 2024. Lesbia had worked with the diocese’s rural and urban credit project since 2006, and Carmen as a justice promoter in marriage annulment cases since 2018.
Their families have not heard from them since.
Carmen and Lesbia were among 46 religious leaders who were arbitrarily detained in Nicaragua in 2024, as documented in a brand-new report by CSW. Many of the detentions were short-term, lasting a few hours or days, however, some – like that of these two women – have continued for weeks and months. There appears to be little rhyme or reason as to why.
In one case last summer, a Roman Catholic priest was detained by a local police chief after he returned home from visiting a relative in another municipality. He was released after four hours, but not before he was told, ‘You may go, but be careful about sharing what happened on social media because we will arrest you; and you already know that the mass is always under surveillance, so be very careful with what you say in sermons.’
In another case, a Protestant Christian couple, both pastors, were detained by a high-ranking police officer who took them to a maximum-security prison where they were separated and interrogated. Both were subjected to inhumane treatment, including treatment of a sexual nature, and were told their detention was a consequence of having prayed for Nicaragua and Israel in their church services. The couple’s church was closed following their release, and they have since been prohibited from engaging in any activities of a religious nature.
These cases are just a snapshot of life under a regime that has grown ever more hostile to human rights and fundamental freedoms, and especially to those that stand up for them, in recent years.
In 2024 the Nicaraguan government cancelled the legal status of almost 2,000 independent civil society organisations, bringing the total number of organisations to have experienced such treatment since 2018 to over 5,500. Those affected – among them religious orders, churches, entire Protestant denominations, schools, universities, faith-based charities and radio and television outfits – formed a key part of Nicaragua’s social fabric, in many cases providing programmes and services that benefitted thousands of men, women and children across the country.
In the eyes of the government, the efforts of such organisations to improve their communities are viewed as a threat, perhaps even a criticism of its own inability to support its citizens. This, of course, is unacceptable.
It is for similar reasons that the regime continues to interfere heavily in religious activities. For years, preaching about justice, unity and democracy has been viewed as criticism of the government and therefore treated as a crime, while public religious events and processions are prohibited for all but a few groups that are aligned with and supportive of the regime.
In some cases, even activities that were not explicitly religious have been targeted, as was the experience of parishioners of the San Miguelito Church in San Miguelito, Rio San Juan, who in October were ordered to shut down a bake sale that had been set up to help raise funds to repair the church’s roof.
The message is clear: the Nicaraguan government will allow no group or individual that it perceives as even the slightest threat to its authority and survival to operate freely.
It is therefore essential that international community does all it can to strengthen and support independent Nicaraguan voices, including those of the hundreds of former political prisoners who have been forcibly exiled from the country in recent years.
Efforts to hold the government to account for its crimes must also be redoubled, and states must not be deterred by other major human rights violators like China, Cuba and Venezuela with whom Nicaragua has strengthened its relationships. The government must be made to provide answers as to the whereabouts of Carmen and Lesbia, to release them and all other remaining political prisoners in the country, and ultimately to cease its sweeping and draconian efforts to silence, intimidate and oppress its own people.
By CSW’s Press & Public Affairs Officer Ellis Heasley
Click here to read CSW’s new report on Nicaragua.
Click here to download the report in Spanish.