A series of policies recently enacted by the Nicaraguan government will significantly impact the activities of churches and ministries operating within the country.
Viewed by religious freedom specialists as an effort to extend the state’s control over religious institutions, the measures impose taxes on tithes and offerings while mandating that organizations create formal partnerships with the Nicaraguan government to perform in-country projects. Local newspaper La Prensa estimates that taxes on tithes may reach 30 percent.
President Daniel Ortega introduced the bill that was unanimously approved on August 20 by the Asamblea Nacional. Ortega’s party, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, which began within the Seventies as a guerrilla group, controls the legislature.
The changes within the law will favor “the event of projects of interest to families and communities inside a framework of solidarity and adherence to national laws,” said Vice President Rosario Murillo, who’s married to Ortega.
The scope of the brand new regulations has been vague. Both Murillo and an Asamblea Nacional statement on the bill described the laws as “strengthening transparency, legal security, respect, and harmony.” One likely consequence is that churches receiving foreign money—including funding from their very own denominations—might be forced to enter into an alianza de asociación (“partnership alliance”) to access their funds.
The same day the laws passed, the federal government canceled the legal status of 1,500 organizations, citing their failure to submit proper financial statements. For the primary time for the reason that Ortega administration began cracking down on nonprofits, nearly half of those affected include those with evangelical connections.
That includes numerous Pentecostal ministries and churches, in addition to those run by Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. While a number of of the institutions that were affected worked nationally, many were neighborhood churches of lower than 100 congregants.
The majority of the opposite groups affected were connected to the Catholic church. (The rest focused on sports or culture.) As a part of the federal government’s decree, these organizations’ assets might be transferred to the Nicaraguan government.
“Churches, especially the smaller ones, are places where the sense of community and participation could be very strong,” said a spokesperson for the Netherland-based Observatory of Religious Freedom in Latin America (ORFLA), who asked to stay anonymous for security reasons. “The government desires to diminish the importance of this contribution in order that only the state stands out.”
Last yr, these financial reporting requirements led to the closure of ten churches belonging to a Texas-based ministry, Mountain Gateway, and the arrest of 11 of its pastors operating in Nicaragua. Weeks earlier, the group had led a two-day evangelistic and relief event that brought together greater than 300,000 people.
However, several laws passed in recent times have created complex financial reporting standards for nongovernmental organizations, leading to compliance difficulties, according to The New York Times. Even the Catholic church has struggled.
Since 2018, the federal government has closed 3,390 organizations (10% of them foreign) for “money laundering,” according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In 2022, the federal government shut down 20 evangelical churches on similar grounds.
CT reached out to representatives of varied Christian organizations in Nicaragua, including a few of those whose status had been canceled. Nearly all declined to comment. One source described the situation as “very sensitive.”
“We may even go to prison or lose our citizenship for critical comments,” the person said.
Last yr, the Nicaraguan government banned processions and outdoor worship services, citing security concerns after the 2018 protests that resulted in riots and arrests. The government also prohibited the display of symbols comparable to crosses or the Star of David in front of personal homes.
Evangelicals comprise nearly 40 percent of Nicaragua’s 7 million people, making it the third-most evangelical country in Latin America. Many haven’t any issue with Ortega’s actions.
“This is just not exactly persecution,” said Ismael Jara, who pastors Iglesia Bautista Sendero de Luz in Ciudad Sandino. “We aren’t banned from going out into the streets and doing evangelism. … Only mass gatherings aren’t allowed attributable to the [political instability that followed the 2018 protests].”
Jara explained that stricter rules for events outside of churches will force congregations to be more organized when planning events. He also suggested that the lack of organization registrations might even be a positive for some churches, pushing them to turn out to be more financially transparent to fulfill the federal government’s reporting demands.
Additionally, Jara believes it’s going to be healthy for believers to take care of a greater distance from politics. “We need to learn to be neutral and respect the authorities,” he said.
In April, after a gaggle of experts presented a report on religious rights violations on the United Nations, six evangelical organizations—including three church associations, two denominational groups, and a theological studies center—published open letters affirming the existence of freedom of worship within the country. Bishop Aldolfo Sequeira, president at Centro Intereclesial de Estudios Teológicos y Sociales, signed one in every of the letters, declaring that the federal government “is respectful of the liberty of worship and expressions of religion of the Christian people, allowing everybody to practice the faith of their alternative throughout the country.”
Around the identical time, the Baptist Convention of Nicaragua published an announcement of support for Ortega and Murillo, who’ve “all the time supported our evangelistic work and have favored all our activities.”
But those outside the country are less convinced.
Because these shutdowns are “backed by a legislative framework,” the federal government’s threat to spiritual freedom is “more evident and more scandalous” than the Nineteen Eighties crackdown on religious groups by the Sandinistas, or members of Ortega’s political party, the ORFLA spokesperson said.
By revoking registrations and confiscating the assets of non secular organizations, the federal government is forcing these ministries to align themselves with larger groups which might be willing to undergo the conditions imposed by the federal government, explained the representative, who asked to stay anonymous for security reasons. Without a legal registry, they will’t buy land or construct a church.
Additionally, the federal government imposes its goals and policies on Christian organizations in an try and “eliminate any presence of institutions that don’t share the identical political orientation,” in accordance with ORFLA.
In its justification of the laws passed on Monday, Ortega argued that activities of nongovernmental organizations have resulted in “a discretionary use of [programs and projects] that is just not linked to the national plans, strategies, and policies promoted by our good government within the fight against poverty and the safety of our population.”
In June, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published a report highlighting “severely deteriorating religious freedom conditions in Nicaragua.” “President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo are using laws on cybercrimes, financial crimes, legal registration for not-for-profit organizations, and sovereignty and self-determination to persecute religious communities and advocates of non secular freedom,” it stated.
USCIRF really useful that the US designate Nicaragua as a rustic of particular concern “for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of non secular freedom” and suggested imposing sanctions on Nicaraguan government agencies and officials.
Up until now, the first source of tension between the Sandinistas and the religious sector has been with the Catholic church. In February of last yr, the bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, was arrested on charges of conspiracy and had his Nicaraguan citizenship revoked due to sermons deemed anti-government.
Álvarez was detained until January this yr when the federal government exiled him to the Vatican. Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s try and negotiate his release led to cooler relations between Brazil and Nicaragua, culminating in each countries expelling the opposite’s ambassador earlier this month.
In August 2023, a Nicaraguan court ordered the closure and confiscation of the assets of Universidad Centroamericana, the next education institution in Managua run by Jesuits, at the federal government’s request. Authorities accused the university of harboring criminal activities through the 2018 protests. The motion sparked protests inside the tutorial community and on the Vatican.
