The pro-government caucus, through deputy Filiberto Rodríguez, asked the presidency of Parliament to cancel six new non-profit organizations or NGOs, more than a week after the intervention and confiscation of assets from six universities.
Citing a report from the person in charge of the direction of registration and control of associations of the Ministry of the Interior (Migob), Franya Urey Blandón, in which the official argued that obligations had not been fulfilled, Rodríguez requested the cancellation of the Association of Working and Unemployed Women María Elena Cuadra, the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH) and the PEN International/Nicaragua Association.
The other organizations affected are the Blanca Aráuz Foundation for the Promotion and Development of Women and Children (Fundemuni); Nicaraguan Center for the Promotion of Youth and Children and the Ibero-American Foundation of Cultures (Fibras). If the initiative materializes, the list of organizations, foundations and legal entities canceled would rise to 82 since 2018.
According to the Migob report, these organizations have not reported their financial reports according to the fiscal periods and with detailed breakdowns, they did not promote transparency policies in the administration of the funds, their execution being unknown and whether or not they were in accordance with the purposes for which they were created. They also point out that their boards of directors have expired deadlines; they are “headless”.
According to Blandón, head of the Department of Registration and Control of Non-Profit Civil Associations, said offenses are in violation of Law 147, General Law on Non-Profit Legal Entities and the regulations of Law 977, Law against money laundering. assets, the financing of terrorism and financing of the proliferation of weapons.
The María Elena Cuadra Movement was born in May 1994. It is defined as an autonomous, broad, pluralistic, non-profit women’s movement that promotes and ensures the incorporation and full participation, under conditions of equality, of women in society. Nicaraguan, according to its website. Sandra Ramos, one of its founders and a critic of the Regime, participated in the second attempt at a national dialogue between the opposition and the dictatorship in 2019.
Ramos also came out as head of the NGO in September 2020, when the Ortega Police kept the property seized for four hours. “It was arbitrary,” Ramos denounced on that occasion.
While ANPDH is an organization that defends human rights. His role during the social outbreak of April 2018 and the subsequent massacre unleashed by the Ortega regime earned him threats and criminalization by government sympathizers.
Its executive secretary, Álvaro Leiva, participated in several exchanges of political prisoners with police officers during the height of the protests in Masaya. The threats, after his humanitarian work, caused his subsequent exile in Costa Rica.
The ANPDH announced the closure of its central offices in August 2018, “after receiving alarming information” about illegal practices of “judicial persecution and criminalization without legal basis.” They assured that they continue to receive complaints of human rights violations through electronic means.
In early February, the National Assembly canceled 16 non-profit organizations, including the Polytechnic University of Nicaragua (Upoli), which in 2018 was taken over by students protesting against the Daniel Ortega regime and became a bastion of the civic struggle against the regime.
