Ortega orders the closure of the US Chamber of Commerce in Nicaragua and 150 other international institutions
The measure that went into effect this Thursday joins others already previously approved by which more than 1,500 non-governmental organizations, most of them of a religious nature, were prohibited from operating in the Latin American country.
Archive image of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building.
Nicaragua ordered the closure of several Chamber of Commerce on Thursday - that of the United States, the European Union, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Panama - as well as 151 more NGOs just days after Daniel Ortega's regime announced the banning of more than 1,500 non-governmental institutions, mostly of a religious nature.
Along with this, the Latin American country will also require the various churches and religious organziations to pay income tax.
It will do so by means of a resolution that, published in the official newspaper La Gaceta and signed by President Daniel Ortega, repeals the "Ley de Concertación Tributaria," a norm that exempted churches, denominations, and religious foundations to pay this tax that, according to AFP, can reach up to 30% of their annual income, depending on the amount they report to the Government.
The United States Chamber of Commerce (known as AMCHAM) has been operating in Nicaragua for 47 years. With the objective, as reported by WTOP, of "promoting investment and bilateral trade with Nicaragua's most important trading partner," this institution had managed to survive in the country despite the existing tension between the United States and Nicaragua.
A relationship that has been fracturing in recent years, especially since the massive street protests that took place in 2018 and which Ortega harshly repressed.
Since then, Nicaragua's president began to persecute non-governmental organizations, closing more than 5,000 of these institutions to date, under the pretext that these NGOs receive money from abroad and fight to try to oust him from office.
However, the measure is viewed with suspicion by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights which considers that the closure of these institutions demonstrates "the deliberate closing of civic and democratic space" and seeks to "severely" limit the participation of civil society in the political, social, cultural and religious life of the country. An opinion also shared by the UN, which assured that the situation is "deeply alarming."
Former Nicaraguan presidential candidate Felix Maradiaga, who is in exile in the United States, said in a post on X that this decision is further evidence of the "systematic repression" that characterizes the Nicaraguan government:
Similar words to those pronounced by the head of U.S. diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean, Brian Nichols, who condemned the "unjust" closure of NGOs as well as "the violent harassment, detention and repression of members of religious orders and faith communities in Nicaragua."
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