Four Nicaraguans Prevented From Returning to the Country During Holy Week

Four Nicaraguans, including two priests, were denied entry to Nicaragua during Holy Week, denounced the organization Monitoreo Azul y Blanco.

One of the priests who could not return to his country due to the refusal of the Government presided by Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, is Jalder Hernández, from the Archdiocese of Managua, Masaya and Carazo, headed by the Nicaraguan Cardinal and Archbishop of the capital, Leopoldo Brenes.

According to Monitoreo Azul y Blanco, the two priests – the name of the other was not revealed – were prohibited from entering Nicaragua on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. On the same day another Nicaraguan was denied entry, and a fourth on Good Friday.

The organization, which defines itself as an interdisciplinary team that records and consolidates complaints of human rights violations linked to the political context that Nicaragua has been experiencing since April 2018, documented a total of 20 incidents of human rights violations during Holy Week in Nicaragua and 11 individual victims (6 men and 5 women).

Human rights violations included harassment, territorial control, threats, denial of entry into the country to nationals, two arbitrary detentions, mistreatment and torture, confiscation of property, and refusal to renew the five-year term of lawyers.

In addition, threats and harassment of religious activities at the national level, mainly processions.

The main collective victims, according to the Monitoring, were the Catholic Church and parishioners, the Evangelical Church, victims’ families and citizens in general.

Dictatorship brings hooded protesters out to march

The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship carried out on April 22 a series of walks “for peace” in different municipalities of Nicaragua. In the case of Managua, the presence of the supposedly hooded “volunteer police” was notorious.

“We are going to be walking for peace throughout the country, saying peace is ours, peace is not to be trifled with, peace is our right, our heritage, our inheritance, peace has to be firm and lasting,” Murillo said during her speech to pro-government media.

At the beginning of April, in a new attempt to erase the memory of the victims of the repression and the April Rebellion of 2018, the dictatorship forced state workers and its army of supposed “volunteer police” to carry out walks in all the municipalities of Nicaragua.

The dictatorship organized a series of activities, which began on April 1, 2025 and which included “dianas” in all municipalities, aimed at promoting the official narrative of “they could not, nor will they be able to”, as touted by Murillo. The activities culminated with the walks led by the alleged “volunteer police”, a term under which the dictatorship justified the actions of paramilitary groups that with blood and fire dismantled the barricades in the country.

With information from EFE