Nicaragua closes fifteen NGOs due to rising tensions with the Catholic Church

The Nicaraguan government has closed 15 NGOs, including six religious ones, according to decrees published in the official newspaper on Friday. La Gaceta. One resolution, signed by Interior Minister María Amelia Coronel, orders “the cancellation of the legal personality and registration” of 13 NGOs “for failure to fulfill” 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 committed to defending the rights of children. This year, the government of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, tightened laws against NGOs, finding that they can only operate in Nicaragua through “association partnerships” with state entities.

Among the fifteen closed NGOs, there are some that focus on education, healthcare and community work. This is evident from a study published in October by the Colectivo Nicaragua Nunca Másan organization operating in exile in Costa Rica, Ortega’s government has cut nearly 5,600 NGOs since 2018. More than 1,235 of these were religious organizations.

The government mainly argued that these organizations had not filed their annual accounts and had confiscated their assets. Ortega, a 79-year-old former guerrilla who ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s and has returned to power since 2007, claims that NGOs – and especially the Catholic Church– supported the 2018 anti-government protests, which he views as a Washington-sponsored coup attempt.

According to the UN, the 2018 protests killed more than 300 people in three months and led to thousands of exiles. This week, Ortega’s government sent Bishop Carlos Herrera, president of the bishops’ conference of Nicaragua, to Guatemala. He is the third Catholic bishop to be deported from the country.