The Parliament of Nicaragua, with a Sandinista majority, approved this Thursday, June 16, the cancellation of the legal personality of 98 civil society organizations, which add to the 93 eliminated this Wednesdaywith which the regime outlawed 191 NGOs in two days, allegedly violating Nicaraguan law.
With 74 votes in favor, and 16 abstentions, the annulment decree of these 98 new organizations, foundations, and associations, which worked in the areas of indigenous rights, social development, local development, education, and care for women and children in different areas, was approved. from Nicaragua.
The Ortega legislator Filiberto Rodríguez – the main promoter of the annulment of the NGOs – has threatened that the cancellations will continue, as part of the regime’s mission to enforce the law and an alleged order in conjunction with the Ministry of the Interior (Migob).
The Ortega party assures that the organizations have not complied with the presentation of their financial statements, “according to the fiscal periods with a detailed breakdown of income, expenses, trial balance and details of donations, (origin, provenance and final beneficiary)”; They also did not report who makes up their boards of directors, previous donations from abroad, identity documents of their funders, and did not register as Foreign Agents.
This argument is repeated in each decree, without presenting particular evidence for each organization. The Migob also does not respond to questions from former directors of NGOs stripped of their legal status, who point out that they impose obstacles in the registration processes as foreign agents and other documentation necessary to be in order.
With this new round, the number of NGOs canceled by Ortega from the end of 2018 to date amounts to 669, with 2022 being the most disastrous year for the organized civil organization, since 88% of the illegalizations have occurred in what goes from the present; exactly 595.
The hunt against the organizations intensified from May, when the ruling party canceled 188 NGOs, followed by June, which in its 16 days has 313 associations cancelled.
For its part, the Migob accuses the organizations of violating three laws: Law 1115, General Law for the Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations; the Law against Money Laundering, Financing of Terrorism and the Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction or Law 977 and Law 1040, Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents.
