Ortega’s Ministry of Interior continues to close NGOs

The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, through the Ministry of the Interior (Migob), shuttered another hundred Non-Profit Organizations this week, bringing the number of NGOs losing their legal status to 1706 so far of 2022. In total, they have canceled 1780 organizations since the end of 2018. Their goal appears to be to completely wipe out organized civil society.

Among the organizations canceled Wednesday by the Migob are the Association of Pediatricians for the Health of Children of Nicaragua, the Association of Retirees of Nicaragua, the Association for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights to Guarantee Life, Peace and Citizenship, the Food Association Children, Let’s Work for Nicaragua Foundation and the Union of Coffee Growers of Nicaragua.

The cancellation of the organizations, ordered by the Minister of the Interior, Maria Amelia Coronel Kinlcoh, is justified under the same argument that the National Assembly has been using in recent months. The organizations allegedly “have failed to comply with their obligations under the law,” since “for more than four to 28 years they did not report” their boards of directors, their financial statements, as well as “the identity and origin of all their members and donors.”

With the reform to Law 1115 or the Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations, approved in August, the range of organizations regulated by the Migob was expanded and this ministry was granted “the power to authorize, regulate, operate, dissolve, liquidate and cancel national and international non profits, through (a simple) Ministerial Agreement”. The affected parties are left with no recourse.

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The new list of affected NGOs includes the Nicaraguan Academy of Dermatology Association, the Foundation for the Development of Tourism, the Foundation for the Development of Science and Technology, the Nicaraguan War Veterans Association, the Las Malinches Association, the Nicaraguan Rotarians Association for Community Development and the Roberto Teran Foundation.

Others canceled were the Foundation for the Development of Resources of Nicaragua, the Happy for Life Carnival Association, the Economic and Social Development Agency Association of Leon, the National Association of Former Political Prisoners of Nicaragua, the Association of Collective Initiatives for a Culture of Peace, the Nicaraguan Foundation for Change, among others.

See the complete list here in the Official Gazette.

This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times