The Government of Nicaragua, through the Ministry of the Interior, canceled the legal entities of another 100 NGOs, bringing a total of 3,206 organizations of this type dissolved after the popular protests that broke out in April 2018, the Nicaraguan authorities reported this Saturday.
The outlawing of these 100 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), 91 Nicaraguans and 9 of other nationalities, was approved by the head of the Interior of that country, María Amelia Coronel, according to the ministerial agreement published in the Official Gazette, La Gaceta, of Nicaragua .
According to the Ministry of the Interior, the 91 Nicaraguan NGOs are abandoning or failing to comply with their obligations, including the fact that they did not report their boards of directors and financial statements for periods of between 3 and 22 years, as well as information on the identity and origin of all their members and donors.
In the case of the 9 NGOs of other nationalities, including 4 from the United States, they were dissolved on the grounds that they had been abandoned and had been failing to comply with their obligations for between 2 and 16 years.
Related news: 43% of registered NGOs in Nicaragua have been dissolved since 2018
Of the total number of NGOs illegalized, 3,101 were illegal as of March of this year, according to a report by 18 organizations that denounced in a public hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), according to them, the “extreme situation in relation to the systematic violation of freedom of association and the right to defend human rights in Nicaragua.”
Sandinista deputies such as Filiberto Rodríguez have said that the affected NGOs used resources from the donations they received to try to overthrow President Daniel Ortega in the demonstrations that broke out in April 2018.
In April 2018, thousands of Nicaraguans took to the streets to protest controversial social security reforms, which later turned into a demand for Ortega’s resignation as he responded with force.
The protests left at least 355 dead according to the IACHR, although Nicaraguan organizations raise the figure to 684 and the Ortega government recognizes 200.
The Sandinistas have also argued that the illegalization of these NGOs is part of an ordering process, because not all of the 7,227 that were registered in Nicaragua until 2018 were operating.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which has worsened after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo. , as vice president, with her main contenders in prison or in exile.
