In Continuing Crackdown, Nicaragua Orders Closure Of Red Cross

The National Assembly of Nicaragua has voted to break up the local branch of the Red Cross, a nonprofit humanitarian organization, as a portion of a continuous clampdown on bunches seen as a threat to the government of Daniel Ortega.

The law to shutter the Red Cross passed consistently on Wednesday, with the council beneath the control of Ortega's Sandinista Party.

In its place, lawmakers called for a "new Nicaragua Red Cross" that would function as a "decentralized, autonomous" body under the government's Ministry of Health. However, it is unclear how the country would fund such a venture.

The assault on the Red Cross comes in the midst of a broad thrust to smother seen government critics and other associations, counting the Catholic Church.

The Nicaraguan government will seize the Red Cross's property within the nation, as part of Wednesday's resolution. It has charged the healthcare nonprofit of executing "attacks on peace and stability" for its part in anti-government demonstrations in 2018, Al Jazeera reported.

Those challenges, started by changes to Nicaragua's social security framework, rapidly developed from a student-led development to a more extensive thrust against Ortega's organization.

Between April 2018 and July 2019, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights thinks that 355 people died in fights with the government's army. Many people got hurt and around 100,000 left the country in two years, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The Red Cross helped people that were hurt during protests, but the Nicaraguan government said they were not being neutral.

"The association itself transgressed the laws of the country," it said in a document supporting Wednesday's actions to the legislature.

The Red Cross has been around since the 1800s and helps people during wars and other disasters worldwide.

The Red Cross used to have permission to work in Nicaragua starting in 1958, but that permission was recently canceled by a new resolution on Wednesday. With the help of donations, it had around 2,000 volunteers and 63 ambulances in the area. This information comes from the news agency AFP.

Nicaragua has shut down more than 3,000 groups and organizations that were speaking out against the government. There are many different things, such as a place for horses and a school in Nicaragua that has been around for a long time.

Last week, people who judge things said that the Ortega government arrested 40 people who disagreed with them. They accused these people of doing bad things like planning against the government and betraying the country.

Nicaragua made 222 political prisoners leave the country and go to the United States. They were treated poorly and lost their citizenship. A bishop named Rolando Alvarez refused to get on a plane. He is now in jail for saying things that weren't true and for secretly planning with other people.