Nicaragua has dissolved another 1,500 associations, amid growing repression of civil rights in the country.

Government of Nicaragua in Central America It melted 1,500 non-profit associations have failed, according to the Ministry of Interior, to comply with legal obligations related to submitting their financial statements, donations received and other official matters, such as their organizational structure. Measures Published on Monday in the local Official Gazette and signed by Interior Minister María Amelia Coronel Quinloch, it concerns hundreds of religious associations, as well as several sports federations, cultural clubs, and women’s, youth and indigenous rights groups. In addition to dissolving the associations, another measure in the context of the country’s growing repression of civil rights, the law provides for the confiscation of their movable and immovable assets.

Nicaragua, located between Honduras and Costa Rica, has a population of about 7 million and is ruled by President Daniel Ortega, the historic leader of the Sandinista Liberation Front, the socialist organization that, with the last armed revolution in Latin America, ended the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979. He was first elected president of Nicaragua in 1985 and again in 2006, after losing three consecutive elections: he has been president since January 2007.

Over time, Ortega has arrested dozens of politicians, journalists and activists he considers hostile to his regime, and dissolved more than 5,000 media outlets, NGOs, cultural and scientific associations. But he has also expelled clergy and missionaries and closed radio and television stations linked to the Catholic Church, accusing them of threatening the stability of his government. The sentencing of a Catholic bishop to 26 years and four months in prison in early 2023 for high treason and spreading false news was the most serious repercussion of the deterioration in relations between the Catholic Church and its regime.