Nicaragua closes 1,500 NGOs, predominantly most of them religious

Nicaragua has shuttered another 1,500 NGOs, a government notice said Monday, just days after the country passed a regulation requiring non-governmental organizations to work exclusively in "partnership alliances" with state entities.

The government of Daniel Ortega has jailed hundreds of opponents, real and perceived, and closed thousands more NGOs since protests against his regime in 2018 that were met with a crackdown the UN said left more than 300 people dead.

Monday's announcement was the single-largest targeting of NGOs to date, on charges that they had failed to declare their income.

Ortega’s government considers the 2018 protests as an attempted coup d'etat promoted by Washington.

Last month, a group of United Nations experts slammed "systematic and widespread abuses of international human rights law" in the Central American country.

The Nicaraguan Red Cross and several Catholic charities are among the NGOs shuttered to date, often on charges widely dismissed as spurious.

Ortega's wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, has described religious people as "children of the devil" or "agents of evil" who carry out "spiritual terrorism."

At the end of 2023, some 30 clerics were imprisoned and later sent out of the country, to the Vatican.

Also last year, the government expelled more than 300 politicians, journalists, intellectuals and activists, accusing them of treason.

At least 263 journalists have been forced to leave Nicaragua since the crackdown started, a press freedom body said in July.