The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo will cancel, between this Wednesday and Thursday, the legal status of at least 200 NGOs, which will exceed a thousand organizations canceled from the end of 2018 to date.
This Wednesday, July 13, the National Assembly, dominated by the Sandinista Front, approved a decree that outlawed a hundred Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs), whose initiative was presented on July 6.
For this Thursday, July 14, the deputies are expected to approve another NGO cancellation decree, which was introduced last Tuesday, July 12.
With the approval of both decrees, the number of NGOs outlawed by the dictatorship in the last three and a half years will rise to 1,070. So far in 2022, the regime has annulled 996 civil society organizations.
The first decree was approved with 75 votes in favor and 16 abstentions, the same vote as the last annulment decrees. The Ortega deputy, Filiberto Rodríguez, has defended the massive closure of foundations, associations and organizations, as part of an “ordering”, which the Ministry of the Interior (Migob) assures has collected sufficient information to support that the closed NPOs allegedly failed to comply with the laws that regulate them.
The new sweep of NGOs occurs five days after regime operators took over the facilities of seven organizations, whose legal status was canceled months before. The confiscated properties belong to: ANIA, the CEPS of Ciudad Sandino, Meeting Points, La Corriente, Operación Sonrisa, Cantera and Centro Humboldt.
On June 17, the National Police also occupied the headquarters of the Children’s Association of Working Boys and Girls “Tuktan Sirpi”, and the Education and Communication Association “La Cuculmeca”, in Jinotega, after fifteen days of having been cancelled.
Law specialists had warned that, with the urgent approval of Law 1115 or the Law for the Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations, Ortega legalized the confiscatory acts that they carried out de facto, although the Political Constitution prohibits it.
The canceled organizations do not have the right to appeal the decision of Parliament and, in many cases, the former directors have denounced that the Migob established obstacles for them to comply with all the requirements mandated by law, including the Foreign Agents Regulation Law, pointed out by lawyers to be an unconstitutional norm.
The Migob accuses the outlawed organizations of breaking three laws: Law 1115; Law 977, Against Money Laundering, the Financing of Terrorism, and the Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Law 1040, on the Regulation of Foreign Agents.
They point out the associations for failing to present 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 comply with the registration as Foreign Agents.
Social impact
More than 30% of the 1,070 canceled NPOs focused on various areas of development, while more than 15% executed social projects and served disadvantaged communities and risk groups. The closure of the association of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, was one of the acts that has generated the most outrage at the national and international level for impeding the charitable work carried out by the Order.
An 18 missionaries were expelled from Nicaragua last July 6 to Costa Rica. They ran a nursery, a home for abused or abandoned girls, a nursing home, and carried out a school reinforcement project, which they closed on June 15.
The regime has closed environmental, educational, defenders of the rights of children, women, adolescents, indigenous rights, culture, entrepreneurship and health, regardless of the impact that this has generated to its beneficiaries.
Among the NGOs canceled this Wednesday are: the Association of Independent Journalists of Matagalpa “La Nueva Era” (APIM), Tomatoya Odorico D’Andrea Benevolent Foundation (FUNBETOD’A), Foundation for Rural Development “Father Francisco Luis Espinoza Pineda ” (FUDER), Foundation for Community Development Generating Opportunities (FUDCOM), Campos Verdes Association (ACV), Association of Founders of Nueva Guinea (Asofun) and Fundación Mujer Integral (Integral Woman). Here you can see the complete list.
In the decree, to be approved on Thursday, the regime will outlaw the organizations Fundación Acahualinca, Fundación Amigos de la Universidad, Asociación de Exmineros del Atlántico Norte, Fundación Juan y Pina Wong, Fundación Nica-Amor a lo Nuestro (Funican), Asociación Solidaridad Contributing to Change (Asol) and others. Here you can see the complete list.
