The dictatorship of Nicaragua, through the Ministry of the Interior, canceled on Wednesday (24) the registration of legal personality of other 100 NGOs, which increases to 3.026 the number of organizations of this type that were illegalized after the protests April 2018.
The illegalization of these 100 NGOs, 91 national and nine foreign, was approved by the Minister of the Interior, María Amelia Coronel, according to a decree published in the Official Gazette, La Gaceta .
According to the Ministry of the Interior, the 91 local NGOs are in neglect or have failed to comply with their obligations, including the fact of not report on their boards of directors and their financial statements for periods between 3 and 19 years, as well as information on the identity and origin of all their members and donors.
In the case of the nine foreign NGOs, incl. Using three from Spain and three from the United States, these had their registrations canceled on the grounds that they had been abandoned and had not fulfilled their obligations for periods ranging from 2 to 24 years.
Of the total number of illegal NGOs, 2.902 had lost their registrations by March of this year, according to a report by 18 organizations that recently denounced in a public hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) “the extreme situation regarding the systematic violation of freedom of association and the right to defend human rights in Nicaragua”.
Sandinista deputies like Filiberto Rodríguez allege that the affected NGOs used resources from the donations received to try to overthrow Ortega in the demonstrations that broke out in April 2018.
At the time, thousands of Nicaraguans took to the streets to protest a controversial social security reform, which later turned into a movement that demanded the resignation of Ortega, who responded with force.
The protests left at least 684 dead according to the IACHR, although local organizations raise the number to 684 and the government recognizes 026.
The Sandinistas also argue that the ban of these NGOs is part of a planning process, since not all of the more than 6.902 registered in the country were in operation.
Nicaragua has been experiencing a political and social crisis since April 2018, which worsened after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, the fourth consecutive and the second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with his main competitors in prison or exile.
