The Nicaraguan Parliament with an official majority has canceled this Wednesday a total of 25 NGOsadding almost 160 those canceled since 2018, when President Daniel Ortega began a persecution against civil society organizations.
With a total of 74 votes in favor, the deputies annulled said NGOs, among which is the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH), which was the last entity in that area left standing in Nicaragua.
With this new onslaught, the options of denouncing the arbitrariness of the Ortega government are nullified, some experts consulted by the voice of america since those that remain are without being legally constituted.
The ruling party also canceled organizations that work with children and adolescents, such as CODENI, as well as others that promote literature such as the Luisa Mercado Foundation, of former Nicaraguan president Sergio Ramírez, exiled in Spain.
The ruling party argued that the NGOs allegedly failed to comply with their obligations under the laws that regulate non-profit organizations and with registering as foreign agents, being obligated to receive funds from abroad.
“They have hindered the control and surveillance of the Department of Registration and Control of Non-Profit Civil Associations of the Ministry of the Interior,” indicated the report presented by the ruling deputy Filiberto Rodríguez.
“CPDH will cease to exist”
The government’s accusations have no place, say some leaders of the organizations canceled this Wednesday, as express At a press conference, the director of the CPDH, Marco Carmona, who stated that the economic reports were presented to the Ministry of the Interior without receiving them.
The CPDH, which would celebrate its 45th anniversary this Wednesday, was also not allowed to register as a foreign agent, Carmona said.
The organization’s lawyer, Eugenio Membreño, affirmed that due to the government’s measure, the CPDH will cease to exist and explained that they will not appeal to the authorities with any recourse.
For his part, Marco Carmona stressed that they will not continue to carry out actions with his name or use it to continue operating, as has happened with other human rights entities that have been annulled in Nicaragua.
“If the National Assembly has taken away our legal status, we will not be using the name of the CPDH because we expose ourselves,” Carmona said.
“Attention would come only from the government”
Some leaders of closed organizations explain to VOA that the “annihilation” of the entities seeks to dismantle the organizational capacity of Nicaraguans “who seek to defend their rights.”
Mónica López Baltodano, executive director of Popol Nah, canceled in 2018, warns that with these closures, the effects are multiple.
“There are already almost 30 medical, cultural and cooperative associations in the private sector that have been cancelled. Ortega seeks to continue strengthening his citizen control mechanism, destroying decades of effort by Nicaraguan civil society, working together with societies, ”he concluded.
In this sense, the academic and sociologist Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo also expressed to the voice of america that the cancellation measures to NGOs are added to a series of “exterminations of civil society.”
“In Nicaragua, the criterion for destroying NGOs is no longer a reason of political affinity, but to turn Nicaragua into a desert. A fence is being woven in which any type of social attention will come exclusively from the government”, concluded Narváez.
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