The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has accumulated more than a thousand illegal associations and foundations in the last four years, in the context of the sociopolitical and human rights crisis that Nicaragua has been going through since 2018.
100 new NGOs join the long list of organizations whose legal status was canceled by the regime’s deputies in order to operate in the country. In total, there are 1,058 associations whose permission to continue with their projects and programs in the nation was withdrawn.
“The Ortega and Murillo regime attacks NGOs, fearing that they could undermine its power, thus depriving the Nicaraguan people of vital services such as health, education and others that the government does not provide. This week we highlight the impact on the Nicaraguan people », wrote the Under Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States, Brian Nichols, on his Twitter account.
In the official newspaper, The Gazette No. 132 This Monday, July 18, the dictatorship made official the closure of the 100 NGOs that the Sandinista deputies canceled last July 14. Most of the associations were dedicated to community development, protection of natural resources, health services, cultural promotion, and religious associations that operated in various departments of the country.
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The Sandinista deputies assure that the NGOs “violate the laws of Nicaragua, disrespect the legal order and have tried to trample on the legal norms that govern the laws of this country. They are paper organizations. They do not exist in the lives of Nicaraguan families and communities.
Deputy Filiberto Rodríguez, promoter of the initiatives, said in plenary that the canceled NGOs used resources from the donations they received to try to overthrow Ortega in the demonstrations that broke out in April 2018, although he has not presented evidence.
Gustavo Porras, the sanctioned president of the Assembly, has pointed out that the banning of NGOs is part of a process of ordering “something that was adrift”, because there were organizations that did not function and others that did not comply with the laws, not were accountable or did not comply with their own statutes.
He also announced that they will continue “with this cleaning work” under the argument that there cannot be more than 6,000 NGOs in Nicaragua “that are not doing anything.”
