The Ministry of the Interior (Migob) canceled this Friday 98 national and two foreign Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs). These were mostly evangelical and others that addressed issues of childhood, health, environment and social development.
With this cancellation of legal status, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo accumulates 2681 NPOs, national and foreign, eliminated since 2018. However, of this total, 2,607 have been canceled between January 19 and November 4, 2022.
The Migob assures that the closure of these spaces, which violates the right of association in Nicaragua, is due to the fact that these organizations “failed to comply with their obligations (…) since they did not report for periods of between five to 24 years, their boards of directors, financial statements with breakdowns of income and expenses. Likewise, for not detailing the name, identification, address and telephone number of all its donors.
The two foreign organizations are the Roblealto Branch Association, from Costa Rica, and the Missionary Ministry Mission of the Seventy, from the United States. According to the Migob, these organizations were canceled because they were abandoned and had between six and eleven years of “failing to fulfill their obligations.”
The cancellations of national organizations were made through a ministerial agreement published in La Gaceta, Official Gazette by the head of the Ministry of the Interior, María Amelia Coronel Kinloch. Meanwhile, those of foreign organizations were made separately by the general director of the General Directorate of Registration and Control of NPOs, Franya Urey Blandón.
National NGOs eliminated
Among the NPOs of religious origin that were eliminated are: the Jesus Christ My Guide Association, the Baptist Foundation for Educational and Social Development, the Faith in Action Christian Ministry Association in Nicaragua, the Nicaraguan Association of Christian Theologians, the Bethlehem Missionary Church Association , the Association of Nicaraguan Christian Communities, the Evangelical Christian Foundation to Shine, the Christian Church Association of Nicaragua, the Prince of Peace Foundation.
Likewise, the Nicaraguan Network Foundation for Communication and Human Rights against AIDS, the Association for the Ombudsman for the Comprehensive Development of Children, Adolescents and Women, the Association for the Rural Institute of the Tropics, the Christian Association for human development and territorial defense and environment of the indigenous peoples of the banks of the Upper Coco River.
Also the Association of Abandoned Children of Nicaragua, the Jean Paul Genie Pro-Childhood Foundation, the Prodevelopment Association of the Manuel de Jesús Rivera Children’s Hospital, the Hope Foundation for Children, the Nicaraguan Association of Angiology and Surgery, among others.
These NPOs must deliver to Migob, within 72 hours, all the documentation related to the liquidation of their property and assets, as well as accounting books, minutes and registration of their members.
Four years of cancellations
On November 29, the Ortega regime will celebrate four years since it began the hunt against the NGOs in Nicaragua, whom it points to financing the alleged “coup attempt” against it.
According to an analysis of CONFIDENTIAL, created from its own database, in 2018 the first nine organizations were cancelled. The following year three more were added and in 2020, two.
It was not until 2021 when the regime began the massive cancellation. In that year there were 60 NGOs cancelled, many of these were medical, human rights, democracy, educational and development groups. In 2022, they accumulate 2607.
The months with the most cancellations are June with 514, September with 500, July with 410, August with 401 and October with 400.
44% of all canceled organizations had between 21 and 30 years of operating in Nicaragua. Another 43% were between 11 and 20 years old. In the list there are also 123 NPOs who were between 31 and 40 years old in Nicaragua, 13 were up to 50 years old and 17 between 51 and 60 years old. More than half of these worked on development issues.
