The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo ordered the National Assembly to approve a new General Law for the Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations to legalize the confiscation of the assets of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) whose personality is canceled legal.
Article 47 of the Law establishes nine ways in which the Ortega Assembly can cancel the legal personality of NGOs: dissolution and liquidation; when it was used to commit illicit acts; when it was used to violate public order; to hinder the control and surveillance of the Directorate of Registration and Control of the Ministry of the Interior; when they distort the objectives and purposes for which it was created.
The other reasons to cancel them are: when they have been in default for at least one year before the application authority, by not reporting financial statements and changes in the board of directors; when their activities are contrary to the nature of the legal personality; for using the organizational scheme to promote destabilization campaigns in the country; for administrative sanction derived from non-compliance with their obligations or carrying out prohibited actions.
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The final part of the mentioned article establishes that “when the cancellation (of the legal personality) derives from the causes established in numerals 2 to 9 of this article (47), the patrimony of the NPO (Non-Profit Organization) will pass to be the property of the state.
The environmentalist Amaru Ruiz, director of Fundación del Río, one of the NGOs canceled in 2018 by the Daniel Ortega regime, points out that with the approval of the new Law on Non-Profit Organizations, the dictatorship intends to appropriate the assets of the civil society organizations. “That is, the new confiscation,” he denounced on his Twitter account.
In the explanatory memorandum of the initiative, Porras points out that the new Law is due to a recommendation by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that states that “countries must review the suitability of the laws and regulations related to entities that can be misused for the financing of terrorism.
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The report called “The brutal demolition of Freedom of Association in Nicaragua”, prepared by the Fundación del Río and Popol Na, indicates that at least 115 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been canceled or “de facto raided” between 2007 and the end of February, since Daniel Ortega came to power. On March 17, the regime canceled another 25 NGOs, making a total of 140 organizations outlaw them.
The study details that in the four consecutive periods that Ortega has been in the Presidency, they have forced their doors to close to 58 local NGOs.
Also 16 other medical associations, 12 international NGOs, 7 international universities, 6 private universities, 5 political parties, 5 business associations, 3 independent media, 2 cultural organizations and a federation of cooperatives.
Of that total, 130 have been closed since the social outbreak against Ortega in 2018, including organizations that defended human rights, medical, feminist, educational, think tanks, among others, according to the report.
