SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (afp) – Nicaragua ordered churches and religious entities to pay income tax and forced the closure of more than 150 non-governmental organisations, according to an official statement Thursday, in a further crackdown on opponents of President Daniel Ortega.

The resolution to “repeal” the law exempting such organisations from tax was published in the official La Gaceta newspaper, and signed by Ortega.

Now they will have to pay taxes of up to 30 per cent of their annual income.

The government also shuttered 151 non-governmental organisations, most of them international and sectorial chambers of commerce.

The move came three days after it closed some 1,500 NGOs, in what the opposition in exile described as an attack against civil society.

The government has jailed hundreds of critics, real and perceived, since protests against Ortega’s regime in 2018 that were met with a crackdown the United Nations said left more than 300 people dead.

Monday’s announcement was the single-largest targeting of NGOs to date. In total, more than 5,200 civil organisations have been dissolved since 2018.

Ortega became the leader of Nicaragua first as a junta head in 1979, after fighting as a guerrilla in the Sandinista movement that toppled the US-backed Somoza family dictatorship. He was later elected as the country’s president in 1985.

Beaten in elections in 1990, he returned to power in 2007 and has since quashed presidential term limits and seized control of all branches of the state.

His regime is under US and European Union sanctions.