Nicaragua’s main newspaper was forced to clandestinely withdraw all its employees from the country due to the intensification of the siege against freedom of expression promoted by the regime of dictator Daniel Ortega.
According to the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the last employees of the newspaper La Prensa left Nicaragua between the 9th and 25th of July. “This means that, as a result of the intensification of the persecution, all the newspaper’s employees are working outside the country,” the group said in a statement.
For Emmanuel Colombié, director of the RSF office for Latin America, the situation shows that the independent press in Managua is dying. “The repressive apparatus established by Ortega to silence journalists is terrifying and intolerable. Voices critical of the authorities are inexorably disappearing.”
The entity reported that on the night of July 6, police carried out a major operation in the Nicaraguan capital, in which operations were carried out to search the homes of several employees of the vehicle – at least one journalist, a photographer, an administrative assistant and two drivers.
The latter, whose names were withheld for security reasons, were arrested at the time, without formal charges or justification provided by the authorities. Alerted, the other employees whose homes were searched went into hiding and managed to avoid arrest. Then they fled clandestinely.
The exile of journalists is the latest episode in a series of acts of persecution against La Prensa promoted by the dictatorship. In April, the Nicaraguan court sentenced the newspaper’s director, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, to nine years in prison on charges of money laundering.
The professional had been in prison since August 2021, three months before the facade elections that guaranteed Ortega’s fourth consecutive term. At the time, the newspaper’s headquarters in Managua was closed by the police and all equipment, including rotary machines, was seized.
Since then, La Prensa had been publishing news only on digital platforms, with few employees and resources, as their bank accounts were also blocked. According to RSF, Holmann has not had access to medical care and his lawyer since he was arrested.
Also this month, the Nicaraguan justice convicted, for money laundering, the vice president of the vehicle, Cristiana Chamorro, who last year declared herself a pre-candidate for the presidency – the sentence is similar to that of her colleague, 8 years old. In addition to her, her brother Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, a former deputy and who is now also on the newspaper’s board, was found guilty.
Catholic radios
The siege of Ortega also took place this Monday against a network of seven Catholic radio stations linked to a bishop who was critical of the dictator. Relations between the regime and the Catholic Church have been deteriorating since 2018, when a wave of protests ended with more than 300 protesters killed in clashes with security forces and regime-aligned paramilitary groups.
“All our radio stations have been closed, but the words of God they will not shut up,” Bishop Rolando Álvarez said on Twitter.
The Nicaraguan telecommunications agency claimed that the radios did not meet technical requirements for their operation, without specifying what they would be.
In the city of Sebaco, in the north of the country, protests erupted after Father Uriel Vallejos refused to hand over equipment for the operation of the radio and asked the faithful for help through a live on Facebook. “Help faithful friends, I am under attack,” he said.
Videos shared on social media showed police firing shots into the air and tear gas, before dispersing the melee and taking control of the parish and radio station. Vallejo has since been a refugee in the parish house with eight faithful, he tweeted.
