The Nicaraguan Parliament dominated by the ruling party has canceled 50 civil society organizations in a single blow this Wednesday, the highest number since President Daniel Ortega launched an attack against the NGOs, which he points to allegedly diverting funds for the opposition.
The cancellation of the organizations was put to a vote in the National Assembly, where it was approved with 75 votes in favor and 16 abstentions.
The pro-government deputy Filiberto Rodríguez, who presented the cancellation initiative, affirmed that the entities allegedly failed to comply with the established laws, although on multiple occasions the organizations have denied the accusations and have warned that what the State seeks is to centralize support for society. civil.
“These associations that do not want to comply with the Law, do not want to be accountable for their funds, what country they come from, who gives them their resources to change the objectives,” Rodríguez said in the plenary where he warned that they would continue “enforcing the Law” .
With the cancellations of this Wednesday, there are already more than 200 NGOs canceled by the Assembly related to Ortega.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner has ruled on the matter and has said that “without civic space, there is no democracy”, referring to the annulment of the 50 NGOs.
Among the canceled NGOs are some focused on supporting people with limited resources, such as Fundación 10, owned by the Canal 10 television station.
was also canceled the feminist collective La Corriente, which worked to promote the sexual and reproductive rights of young people.
“We are not limited to the existence of a legal personality. The different forms of society can be recognized by the State and that helps to be taken into account for decision-making, but that does not mean that if you do not have legal status you cannot continue defending your rights. Therefore, La Corriente is going to continue,” Blandón told the local media. Nicaragua Investigates.
“How are we going to regroup after this?”
The sociologist Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, stepdaughter of the ruler Daniel Ortega and daughter of the vice president Rosario Murillo and who is in exile in Costa Rica, considers that the massive closures of the NGOs “are an extermination of the expressions of civil society” and adds that with these they seek to “turn Nicaragua into a desert of autonomous expressions.”
“Definitely a fence is being woven in which any type of social care policy is going to come exclusively from the government and, with that, according to them, not to generate a single space in which society supports society, but that everything have to be grateful to the Nicaraguan government and specifically to Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo,” he told VOA.
The lawyer and human rights defender Gonzalo Carrión, who leads the collective Nicaragua Never Again, points out that Ortega “intends to impose an absolutely closed, silenced society, and of course, free organization is not compatible with a dictatorship.”
“Every person, every citizen who in Nicaragua exercises their right to live in freedom, to express themselves freely, is considered an enemy,” he warned.
Since 2018, after the protests against the Ortega government, cancellations by civil society organizations in Nicaragua have become constant. Parliament passed a law to register NGOs called the Foreign Agents Law. In accordance with the legislation, all citizens who receive funds from foreigners may not finance any type of organization, movement, political party, coalitions or political alliances that carry out internal political activities in Nicaragua.
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
