Ortega member Franya Urey Blandón, general director of the Directorate of Registration and Control of Non-Profit Organizations (NPO), within the framework of the 45th anniversary of the founding of the Ministry of the Interior (Mint), defended the massive closure of NGOs, which since From 2018 to this year, more than 5,000 organizations and associations have been canceled by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
Urey Blandón first assured that the changes that have occurred in Nicaraguan legislation, linked to the Foreign Agents Law, which forces organizations to register as such in case they receive external financing for their programs, were to “avoid what happened in 2018”, in reference to the social protests in which the population demanded the departure of the dictators Ortega and Murillo.
Related news: Nicaraguan dictatorship beheads 1,500 NGOs with one blow
«These people (non-governmental organizations) had been preparing since before 2018 with funds to destabilize the country, take away our peace and tranquility. “They received the funds with the argument of helping Nicaragua in vulnerable areas and what they did the least was helping vulnerable areas,” said the Ortega official.
Furthermore, he highlighted that these changes were to guarantee that “the funds are not used for interference (…) or undermining the sovereignty of our country.”
The director of Registration and Control of NPO affirms that the thousands of canceled organizations have “lost their legal personality, because they lost it, it was not that the Government canceled them, as is heard in the right-wing media.”
«They (the NPOs) have obligations to fulfill; financial statements, boards of directors, in order to know what they are doing. It is transparency, it is nothing out of this world (…) so, they did not report it, there were organizations that had been non-compliant for 30 years, some that registered and did not appear again, organizations that were headless.
Urey tried to justify violation of freedom of association
Amaru Ruiz, biologist, researcher and president of Fundación del Río —one of the first NPOs canceled by the Ortega regime in 2018— affirms that the official Urey Blandón led “a script prepared to impose a discourse, but that lacks reality and history.” of civil society organizations that were at the service of the population, even in the face of the historical violations that the State has had in terms of its civil and political, social, economic, and environmental rights. “I think it is part of the regime’s discourse in trying to justify its violations regarding freedom of association.”
He pointed out that “in principle, what this official points out is not totally true. (before) Yes there was a regulation, Law 147 (General Law on Non-Profit Legal Entities) established the procedure and the duties and responsibilities of legal entities in the country and there were several levels of supervision by the State of the legal entities. of the organizations (…) then it is not true that there was a level of discretion as she tries to make it seem (…) for activities that they considered were not fulfilling their purposes.
The environmental activist recalled that “freedom of association is a human right (…) and the State is a regulator and should not be a judge and part of the cancellation processes because, if they had a complaint about the operation of an organization, it was due open an investigation process and that did not happen.
«The regime made the decision to arbitrarily cancel civil society organizations and then what it has been doing is modifying the legal system for the issue of freedom of association, restricting it, stopping accepting documentation to put many of them in non-compliance. the organizations that have recently been canceled,” denounced Ruiz.
Related news: Ministry of the Interior cancels another package of more than 160 NGOs
The defender Ana Quirós, feminist and director of the Center for Information and Health Advisory Services (Cisas), another of the NGOs canceled in 2018, agrees with Ruiz when she assures that the Ministry of the Interior applied a “boycott policy against organizations, I did not receive the reports, appointments were made, documents were delivered and they always asked for something more, even if it was something crazy, and generally they did not receive the documents at all.
He highlighted that Cisas, like other organizations, “sought to comply with obligations and have a policy of transparency and responsibility with the management of funds. In our 38 years of existence we have never had a bad, bad audit report nor an observation from the Ministry of the Interior or the Interior.
«What this lady (Urey) does, who is unaware of the functioning of non-profit organizations, is to cover herself with these statements, saying that the organizations operated illegally, that is not true, some may not, but the majority made the efforts, however, there was a systematic barrier on the part of the Ministry of the Interior or the Interior to receive the documentation, therefore the statements made by the lady and the comments by Luis Cañas are undeserved, irresponsible and to make accusations of “That guy should be showing evidence, which they have never done,” he questioned.
Quirós affirms that Cisas, as happened with dozens of other NPOs, was canceled for its participation “in the defense of human rights, something that was within our mission and that we did within Nicaragua for more than 38 years and “We continue to do so to this day.”
