Nicaragua outlaws another 100 NGOs for “failing to comply with their obligations”

Nicaragua once again closes the fence against non-governmental organizations. This Monday, September 19, the Government of the Central American country canceled the legal personality of another 100 NGOs.

The new list includes two entities created by Sandinista ex-military and ex-combatants: the Association of Retired Combatants of the Sandinista Popular Army, Renewal Movement (Asocomret) and the Association for the Comprehensive Development of Army Retirees, Ministry of the Interior and Demobilized Resistance Fighters. Nicaraguan Horizonte Azul (Horizonte Azul Association).

Environmental, medical, educational, community development and attention to risk groups organizations were also vetoed.

Sandinista lawmakers and their allies in the National Assembly have outlawed 1,269 NGOs so far this year. Thus, there are a total of 1,868 closed, of about 6,000 registered, since the popular revolt of April 2018.

The Ministry of the Interior canceled the legal personality of these institutions, clinging to a recent reform to the General Law of Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organisms, which grants it that power. Previously it corresponded exclusively to Parliament.

NGO banned for “breaching its obligations”

According to the Ministry of the Interior, these 100 NGOs were canceled for “failing to comply with their obligations” in accordance with the Law for the Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations and its Regulations, and the Law Against Money Laundering, the Financing of Terrorism and the Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The Interior portfolio also said that the closed entities were abandoned and that the boards of directors were headless.

In addition, he denounced that they did not report the financial statements for more than 4 and 24 years, as well as details of donations, their origin and final beneficiary.

Although he has not presented evidence, Sandinista deputy Filiberto Rodríguez said that the affected NGOs used resources from the donations they received to try to overthrow Ortega in the 2018 demonstrations.

Ban on religious processions

In parallel news, dozens of Catholics from the Nicaraguan city of Masaya celebrated this Monday the “descent” of San Miguel de Arcángel without taking it out in procession to the streets due to a police ban. The commemoration was supervised by security agents.

The National Police prohibited the processions alleging reasons of public security, according to what the Archdiocese of Managua said last Saturday.

This new chapter of limitations on the Church is added to the imprisonment of clerics, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez, and the closure of nine radio stations and three Catholic television channels in August.

This year, the Sandinista government also expelled from the country the apostolic nuncio Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag and 18 nuns from the Missionaries of Charity order.

At least ten dissidents were arrested last week

In addition to the closure of NGOs and the prohibition of religious celebrations, the arrest of at least ten Sandinista dissidents and their relatives last week is added.

A group of 13 Nicaraguan opposition organizations, including the Blue and White National Unity and the Movement in Defense of Our Land, Lake and Volcanoes (Peasant Movement), accused President Daniel Ortega of establishing “a de facto state of exception and terror.” , as well as a “single party” in Nicaragua.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights joined the letter. The office denounced a deterioration in the fulfillment of human rights in the Latin American country in the last four years, which includes attacks against the freedoms of expression, assembly and mobilization, as well as actions against the press and the Catholic Church.

Likewise, the organizations Initiative for Change, the Nicaraguan Community in Guatemala, the Nicaraguan Self-Convened Union (UNA), Agents of Change Nicaragua (Marimba), and the New York New Jersey Work Group, assured that the president and his wife seek to “maintain control iron in all aspects of the life of Nicaraguans curtailing their freedoms”.

In the last year, Ortega has imprisoned close to 200 politicians, businessmen, social leaders, students and journalists.

Crisis in Nicaragua

In April 2018, thousands of Nicaraguans protested controversial social security reforms. The Ortega government responded with force, for which the citizens also began to demand the resignation of the president of the Central American country.

The protests, described as an attempted coup by the Nicaraguan president, left at least 355 dead, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), although local organizations raise the figure to 684. The Ortega government only recognizes 200 dead.

Since then, Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis, exacerbated after the general elections on November 7, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, amid allegations of authoritarianism and electoral fraud and with his main opponents in prison.

with EFE