The Nicaraguan government shut down 15 NGOs, including six religious ones, according to decrees published this Friday in the official newspaper La Gaceta. One resolution, signed by Interior Minister María Amelia Coronel, orders “the cancellation of legal personality and registration” of 13 NGOs “for failing to comply” with their legal obligations.
Another resolution, also signed by Coronel, formalizes “the voluntary dissolution and cancellation of legal personality and registration” of two other organizations, including Plan International, which is dedicated to defending children’s rights. This year, the government of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, tightened laws against NGOs, establishing that they can only operate in Nicaragua through “association partnerships” with state entities.
Among the 15 NGOs shut down are some focused on education, health, and community work. According to a study published in October by the Colectivo Nicaragua Nunca Más, an organization operating in exile in Costa Rica, Ortega’s government has canceled nearly 5,600 NGOs since 2018. More than 1,235 of these were religious organizations.
The government primarily argued that these organizations failed to submit their financial statements and confiscated their assets. Ortega, a 79-year-old former guerrilla who ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s and has been back in power since 2007, claims that NGOs—and especially the Catholic Church—supported the anti-government protests in 2018, which he considers a coup attempt sponsored by Washington.
The 2018 protests left more than 300 people dead in three months, according to the UN, and led to thousands of exiles. This week, Ortega’s government expelled Bishop Carlos Herrera, president of Nicaragua’s Episcopal Conference, to Guatemala. He is the third Catholic bishop to be expelled from the country.
