“Nicaragua is the only country in Central America that does not have human rights organizations”
In La Prensa, August 30, 2024
Specialists consulted described why the Nicaragua population is defenseless considering the closure of organizations.
Due to the closure of at least 5,477 non-profit organizations between 2018 and 2024, human rights defenders think that more and more spaces are being closed in Nicaragua for the protection of human rights which is why the population is facing more vulnerabilities.
Only last week the Ortega Murillo regime shut down 1,650 non-profit organizations. Through agreement 38-2024 of August 19, 2024, the Ministry of the Interior shut down 1,500 organizations, saying that they did not present financial statements for between 1 to 35 years. On the 22nd of the same month it shut down another 150 organizations connected to private enterprises. The last round of shutdowns was this past Thursday August 29th, when the dictatorship shut down 169 organizations,
“The existence of an organized and autonomous civil society of any system of government is vital for contributing, watching, monitoring and pressuring for the behavior of public institutions to be transparent and in accordance with the law. By completely dismantling fundamental rights of freedom of expression, association and organization, in practice we are facing a tyrannical and absolutist system,” said Castillo, founder of the Leadership Institute of the Segovias, an organization shut down by the National Assembly on December 13, 2018.
On her part, the activist and human rights defender Yaritza Mairena pointed out that Nicaragua has the most complex scenario in Central America in terms of the defense of those rights, given that it is the only country of the region which does not have independent human rights organizations. “Nicaragua is the only country in the Central America region that does not have independent human rights organizations and therefore the victims and citizenry in general are left completely defenseless and in impunity,” said Mairena.
The United Nations Organization defines non-profit organizations as “any non-profit group of voluntary citizens who organize at the local, national or international level.”
According to the UN, civil society organizations perform a variety of humanitarian services and functions, supervise policies and promote political participation at the community level.
“Civil society organizations provide analysis and experience, serve as early warning mechanisms and help to monitor and apply international agreements, including the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Objectives. Normally, they organize around specific issues, like the pillars of peace and security of the United Nations, human rights and development,” pointed out the UN.
According to the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights, in the observations of the State of Nicaragua to the report on the migration of Nicaraguans to Costa Rica, the Ortega Murillo regime pointed out that 7,227 non-profit organizations were functioning in Nicaragua. In other words, with the most recent cancelations in the country only 1,920 organizations are left which the dictatorship has not shut down.
In most of cases, the argument of the regime for shutting down the non-profit organizations is that they have not presented their financial statements or they were leaderless, that is, without valid boards of directors. In the ministerial agreement 38-2024 of August 19, 2024, through which the regime shut down 1,500 organizations, it pointed out that they did not present their financial statements for between 1 to 35 years.
Daniel Ortega is afraid of the population organizing
The human rights defender Pablo Cuevas said that the Ortega Murillo dictatorship is afraid of the citizenry organizing through non-profit organizations, and that is why it closes them down.
“All over the world where there is a minimum of democracy, NGOs enjoy respect because they are an expression of citizen participation. In addition, democratic governments incentivize and facilitate the work of organizations,” Cuevas said. In addition, he said that civil society organizations strengthen democratic systems.
“In Nicaragua starting in the decade of the 1990s, those who wanted to have an impact did it through NGOs. The large number of organizations that existed in the country reflected that there was a democratic system, with its weaknesses, but which could be strengthened, until Daniel Ortega came to power,” he said.
Dictatorship distorted the role of civil society
This past August 20th, one day after the Ministry of the Interior shut down 1,500 organizations, the National Assembly, under the control of the Ortega Murillo dictatorship, approved a package of reforms and additions to laws related to the control of non-profit organizations, foreign agents and the tax law, to legalize the mandate announced by the spokesperson of the government, Rosario Murillo, to modify the functioning of NGOs in Nicaragua, forcing them to form “alliances” with public institutions and stripping them of their fiscal exonerations.
During the approval of the reforms, the Sandinista deputy Carlos Emilio López insisted that NGOs and foreign agents should work with the institutions of the regime. In this way, according to Castillo, “essentially it distorted the role of organized civil society.”
“The citizenry ceased being so to be turned into obedient underlings to that divinized power of the Ortega Murillo family. Defending rights in that context implies having clarity that there will be no defense of those rights without running risks which could even cost you your life,” said Castillo.
Reports describe the closure of civic spaces
In the pre-session to the Fourth Cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for Nicaraguan in Geneva, Switzerland, Nicaraguan organizations denounced in their contribution reports the closure of civic space in Nicaragua.
Salvador Marenco, a lawyer of the Nicaraguan Collective Nunca Más, summarized in his intervention the closure of civic space through the cancelation and confiscation of more than 5,000 non-profit organizations.
“Just in this year more than 1,700 organizations have been cancelled, principally starting with the new model of “Association Alliance”, subjecting the few who remain to the fact that all their projected have to be approved by the Ministry of the Interior and carried out only jointly with the State,” said Marenco.
Venezuela the mirror image of Nicaragua
Rigoberto Lobo, a Venezuelan human rights defender, stated that Venezuela is following in the steps of Nicaragua in the criminalization of non-profit organizations.
Amnesty International warned that behind the approval of the “Law of Oversight, Regulation, Behavior and Financing of Non-Governmental Organizations and Non-profit Social Organizations”, known as the “anti-NGO law”, by the National Assembly of Venezuela has the intention of continue to punish human rights and civil society organizations in the country.
“These anti-organization laws, which have to do with their registration, is the result of several attempts to create several instruments to restrict the functioning of organizations,” said Lobo.
“Human rights defenders, for some years now, face great obstacles in registering their organizations. When they want to legalize assembly minutes or update their board of directors,” added Lobo.
