Ortega also attacks Evangelical Churches: More than 200 NGOs closed
December 8, 2023 in Nicaragua Investiga
The dictatorship in Nicaragua has arbitrarily cancelled 342 religious organizations in recent years, within a context of religious persecution and the closure of civic spaces, points out the report.
Not even the Evangelical Churches have been saved from the guillotine of the dictatorship, despite the fact that some leaders have shown themselves to be close to the dictatorial couple, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. According to the record of the Nicaragua Nunca Más Human Rights Collective, the Sandinista regime has closed 256 evangelical organizations in their zeal to control even the religious sector.
The closures began in a massive way in the year 2022 when the regime ordered the elimination of 183 evangelical associations. In the first eleven months of that year another 70 were annulled.
“This could be explained by the fact this religion is composed of different denominations and lacks a vertical structure, like the Catholic Church, from there the desire of the Ortega Murillo regime to control this popular religious sector is not new,” indicates the report titled “Closure of civic space: the criminalization of the exercise of citizenship”, presented on Thursday, December 7th.
The strategy of Ortega for this sector is the “scheme of reward and punishment”, explained the organization.
To exemplify that, between 2007 and 2023 these churches have been favored with 650 property titles, nevertheless, simultaneously the dictatorship cancelled and confiscated organizations like the Misión Cristiano Verbo Association, belonging to one of the most popular Evangelical churches in the country.
There is “an interest in closing evangelical organizations which have not subjected themselves to state controls,” pointed out the human rights defenders.
This is part of the “serious attacks against the freedom of religion,” they warned, which is characterized, in turn, “by a frontal attack against the Catholic Church and the destruction of symbols and festivities of their faithful.”
430 Catholic NGOs closed down.
From 2020 to November of this year, the regime has closed 342 religious organizations: three in 2020; 258 in 2022; and 81 from January to November 6 of 2023.
Of the total NGOs eliminated, 43 organizations are Catholic: 34 were closed in 2022 and nine in 2023; and another 43 of other confessions or of unknown confession: 41 in 2022 and two in 2023.
There are now 3,552 nonprofit organizations which have been closed by direct orders of the regime or through “voluntary dissolution”, between December 2018 to November 6, 2023.
Institutions at the service of Ortega and Murillo have eliminated 3,501 nonprofit associations or organizations, making use of “restrictive and punitive legislation”. Others have opted for “voluntary dissolution because of the current policy of administrative harassment which forces their closure,” which is why they are also considered arbitrary closures.