Human rights organizations denounced the closure of NGOs in Nicaragua and the restrictions imposed on activists, this through the forum on “the situation of freedom of association” in the Central American country where more than 18 organizations participated.
The virtual hearing was attended by a large number of Nicaraguan activists, defenders, and professionals who have had to go into exile due to the closure of civic spaces and the persecution imposed by the Daniel Ortega regime. The participants highlighted that in Nicaragua “the systematic and generalized persecution against civil society is based on a legal framework created since 2018 to repress freedom of association.”
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The environmental rights defender of Fundación del Río, Amaru Ruiz, denounced that “legal restrictions and cancellations of legal entities prevent organizations from managing bank accounts and receiving money from abroad, which reduces their ability to manage cooperation.”
Currently the regime has closed from December 2018 to October 27, 2022, some 2,734 local and international organizations that operated in the national territory. The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) was one of the first organizations that the regime canceled and denounced to the participants that the current government “usurped its assets and maintains a smear campaign against its members.”
In this sense, Carlos Guadamuz, from the Nicaraguan Never Again Human Rights Collective, stated that Ortega “has used raids and the illegal appropriation of the assets of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). To the first 9 NGOs. canceled in 2018, their assets were expropriated, their accounts were frozen and assets were seized from the workers,” said the activist.
For her part, the feminist Karina Sánchez lamented that in Nicaragua “instead of guaranteeing the rights of women, it persecutes the organizations that defend them, its cancellation not only violates the right of association but also implies that vulnerable women are more exposed.” .
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This morning the Ortega-Murillo administration canceled the legal status of another 33 national NGOs and 67 foreign NGOs. The Ministry of the Interior (Migob) indicates that they have “failed to fulfill their obligations under the law; since they did not report for more than 4 to 26 years boards of directors of the country of origin, updating of the power of attorney of the legal representative and financial statements according to fiscal periods, with detailed breakdowns of income and expenses.
The entities are also accused of violating Law 1040, the Foreign Agents Regulation Law; and Law 977, Law Against Money Laundering, the Financing of Terrorism and the Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Haydée Castillo, from the Leadership Institute of Las Segovias, recalled that there are currently more than 200 people imprisoned by the regime “convicted and deprived of liberty for political reasons since 2018, many of them members of civil society organizations who remain in subhuman conditions ».
