Nicaraguan Parliament outlaws the Academy of Language and 82 other NGOs for being “foreign agents”

the parliament of Nicaragua canceled this Tuesday the legal personality of the Nicaraguan Academy of Language, after 94 years of existence, accused by the government of Daniel Ortega not to register as a foreign agent.

The chamber, controlled by members close to the president, with the support of 75 of the 91 deputies, prohibited another 82 NGOs, including the Enrique Bolaños Foundation, of the former president of the same name (2001-2007), accused of skipping the legal system.

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Without any debate in the plenary session of the chamber, the cancellations of personerías were approved through a legislative decree presented by the Sandinista deputy Filiberto Rodriguezat the request of the Ministry of the Interior (Migob), a government entity that supervises NGOs.

The Migob alleges that the canceled entities “have transgressed and failed to comply with their obligations” and have “hindered the control and surveillance” carried out on those entities.

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Among the offenses pointed out to the canceled NGOs, are those of “Failure to register as a foreign agent; not reporting their financial reports and not promoting transparency in the use of funds, not knowing their execution and whether they were consistent with the objectives and purposes for which they were granted legal personality.”

The Nicaraguan Academy of Language (ANL), based in Managua, was created in August 1928, and among its prominent members are the writer Sergio Ramírez and the novelist and poet Gioconda Belli, both based in Spain.

The ANL had rejected the accusations and mentioned that it is working “on the revision, amendments and contributions to the new grammar of the Spanish language and to the dictionary of the Spanish language.”

At the end of 2020, the government approved a law that obliges civil society organizations and legal entities that receive funds from abroad to register as foreign agents and to account for how they spend the money or how they use the donations they receive.

With these 83 NGOs, the number of entities canceled by the Ortega government since 2018 increases to more than 200, in the context of the crisis triggered by anti-government protests that left a balance of more than 355 dead and thousands of exiles, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Human Rights (IACHR).

The government accuses the illegal NGOs of using the funds received to attempt a coup d’état with the support of the United States.

The 76-year-old president, who joined the first Sandinista governing board in 1979 and then was president between 1985 and 1990, returned to power in 2007, where he remains after obtaining a fourth consecutive term in the November elections, with his rivals. prisoners.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.