CV NEWS FEED // The Nicaraguan government has canceled the legal status of a beloved Catholic radio station, Radio María, along with 11 other NGOs, according to a resolution from the Ministry of the Interior.
Published in the country’s officially sanctioned newspaper, La Gaceta, the July 9 decision states that Radio María’s status as an association has been revoked due to its failure to “report financial statements” from 2019 to 2023.
According to a report in The Tico Times, the radio station’s assets, along with those of the 11 other NGOs targeted in the directive, “will be seized by the State as has happened with hundreds of civil and religious associations,” in the country.
President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have regularly issued brutal crackdowns against civil associations and NGOs across the country since 2018, when a wave of protests against the dictatorship left over 300 dead in just three months according to a United Nations Human Rights Watch estimation.
Ortega’s government blamed the Catholic Church and the United States for the 2018 protests against social security reforms, which included tax increases and withdrawn benefits, according to The Tico Times.
The dictatorship’s attacks have largely centered on the Catholic Church, resulting in an ever-worsening plight for the faithful who continue to live “in perpetual fear” of government crackdowns, Catholic Vote previously reported.
Human rights activist Bianca Jagger stated in an op-ed earlier this year that “it is time for the world to wake up” to the Ortega regime’s “brutal” campaign of persecution against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua.
The Ministry’s latest decision also affects three evangelical organizations, a cattle ranching organization, sports, and commercial organizations that failed to report their finances to the government, according to the article in The Tico Times. In total, the Ortega regime has shuttered approximately 3,600 organizations since 2018.
