Gender: Male
Perpetrator: Nicaragua
Religion or Belief: Christian – Protestant
Date of Detainment: July/17/2025
Most Recent Type of Abuse: House Arrest
Rudy Palacios Vargas is under house arrest for his religious leadership role and religiously based political criticism.
On July 17, 2025, masked Nicaraguan officers arrested Palacios Vargas, a pastor at La Roca Church, for his criticism of human rights violations by the government. Officers arrested him along with seven of his family members, friends, and church members. Previously, in 2018, government authorities had raided Palacio Vargas' church and sent him into exile after he prayed for student demonstrators.
In January 2026, Nicaraguan authorities placed Vargas under house arrest.