For Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui, director of the Aristegui Noticias portal and the Aristegui talk show on CNN, the blockade of the international news network CNN in Spanish in Nicaragua confirms that Daniel Ortega’s regime “has already broken any possible limit,” and shows that “they no longer care what people think from the outside.”
Murillo justified, without showing evidence, that the international chain -with 25 years of broadcasting in Nicaragua- allegedly committed “foreign interference” and allegedly violated the controversial Sovereign Security Law, approved in 2015.
The blockade was executed by the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Post Office (Telcor), which —according to Murillo— is obliged “to protect, defend and preserve the principles, rights and guarantees” established in the Political Constitution. Aristegui described as “madness to appeal to a Constitution”
“It is a clear attack on freedom of expressionto freedom of the press, to the right of Nicaraguans and citizens to be informed,” said the journalist on the program This weekwhich is broadcast this Sunday, September 25, through YouTube and Facebook Live, due to Ortega’s censorship.
“The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, evidently, is placed in an absolutely despicable circuit, which must be condemned. What has happened with CNN is a chapter that is added to an absolutely inadmissible reality,” Aristegui stressed.
Vice President Rosario Murillo justified the censorship of CNN en Español alleging that the news from this channel is interfering and that it violates the Constitution and the laws of Nicaragua. What is your reaction as a journalist who has been covering the crisis in Nicaragua?
It is crazy to appeal to a Constitution, of course we respect the constitutions of the countries as journalists and as people who each inhabit their nation, but to say that the Constitution is being affected in its first article, where the issue of the independence, sovereignty, autonomy, and for the Nicaraguan authority to take charge of a decision of this nature, justifying itself with this type of argumentation, borders on the Kafkaesque.
What is happening is a clear attack on freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of Nicaraguans and citizens to be informed, to have an information option such as CNN or how many others should be. It is not only about this international news network, but we know perfectly well that the circumstances in Nicaragua have already exceeded the limits, they have already exceeded what any range of basic tolerance of a democracy could bear.
The dikes and essential structures that place free expression, freedom of the press and the right to information as the main axes of a democracy, which in this case is not, have been broken.
It is clearly a dictatorial action, an authoritarian action. It is taking an additional step than they have already taken. We are talking about limits that are broken, even with international information spaces and, of course, in the first place, what has happened with journalists like you, like your family, like other Nicaraguan journalists, media outlets and spaces that have been overwhelmed.
There is a notion of annihilation, of disappearing who is in front of me and that does not agree with me, without any degree of basic acceptance of the contrary opinion, the right to dissent, the critical task of journalists. The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, evidently, is placed in an absolutely despicable circuit, which must be condemned. What has happened with CNN is a chapter that is added to an absolutely inadmissible reality, for too many years now.
In 2018, at the moments of greatest tension and seriousness of the crisis in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega gave an interview to Andrés Oppenheimer for CNN in which he tried to justify the repression of the paramilitaries. Why is there censorship now if a few years ago Ortega was talking to CNN?
Because it has already broken any possible limit, where it no longer matters, for the regime, what is thought from the outside. This grain that was left from searching for a type of image that could be projected internationally, that could be reasonably drinkable, admissible, not even that remains.
There is not even that strip where a ruler, who can be quite authoritarian in his country, puts on a smile, a face that may seem acceptable to the outside. So that interview with Andrés Oppenheimer seems to me that he was telling us that there was still that fringe of the ruler of wanting to appear as what he is not to the outside.
The decision made by Nicolás Maduro in 2017 can be compared with the one made by Ortega. What consequences did censoring CNN have for Venezuela and remove it from the television and cable channels?
They are cousin decisions because they seek to silence, censor, reduce the possibility of access to information or an option for information by citizens there and in Nicaragua.
The consequence for Venezuela (was) that one more element was added to qualify the type of regime that is governing the country, just as it is happening here.
In your country, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which proclaims itself a defender of national self-determination, is permanently leading a campaign of intimidation and attacks against the media and journalists, including you. Has López Obrador openly censored the media or international media such as CNN?
They are different profiles, which are more than criticizable if you want to see it that way, but in the case of Mexico there is no action of this nature, where it is said to turn off the signal, close the window, cut off the light, disappear from the screen; Such brutal actions have not occurred in Mexico and I don’t think they will.
What is presented is another type of circumstance that does not support free expression or strengthen journalistic work, because there is a politically calculated action to have critical journalists as enemies, and that is a political design that (Andrés Manuel) López has Obrador, (Daniel) Ortega, (Nayib) Bukele, and what (Donald) Trump had.
Unfortunately we have a pattern of behavior of rulers who clearly see a part of the national reality, which has to do with free expression, with critical voices, with counterweights; they see them as if they were political adversaries and that is how they act, with direct attacks, with first and last names, demonizing people with whom they do not sympathize or who may be critical of their government, which can even defame people, look for elements where if it does not annihilate, if it damages the reputation of the people or the media or those instances, that this Government and others in the same model consider that it would be better if they did not exist.
That is attentive on all four sides to the basic notions of democracy, tolerance, plurality, criticism, the free exercise of ideas, access to information, which must be free and robust.
People need sharp journalists, critics, demanding media, instances that are asking the ruler to account, everything that the ABC of democracies says, because it ends up being put as something that should be demonized, demerited, attacked, belittled. Everything one would not expect from a statesman.
Censorship of an international channel like CNN poses a challenge to audiences on how to search for information, but there is also a challenge for journalists on how to circumvent censorship, how effective are digital platforms or others in circumventing television censorship in this times?
As effective as the person is in having internet, basically (effectiveness) lies in the extent to which people in Nicaragua or Venezuela have access to the internet and their signal is good and free, and they can reach the spaces that are being offered through of the internet.
The effectiveness essentially depends not on the broadcasting medium, which has no problem broadcasting its message, but on the person who is going to receive it through technology.
How do you assess the role of social networks? There is criticism of the networks as a space for polarization and disinformation, but on the other hand, the networks are a channel for the distribution of information for the media.
As you say, lights and shadows. It is a very powerful space for netizens and social networks, a privileged space for millions of people to connect and communicate independently of other channels. That, by itself, is invaluable; but what you say also happens: in that robust communication system that should be aimed at empowering citizens and that people who can increasingly send messages and receive messages freely, is also contaminated by an industry, there are bots, there are robberies. There are those who induce the conversation, who contaminate the public dialogue.
Society is trapped in its own decision to use these networks, because they belong to society, and avoid what really is an organic, genuine conversation, which can be critical, irreverent; but that it be free with respect to other types of conversations that are impacted by systems that are appropriating social dialogue.
Not necessarily, those powerful and important tools are being used in the way one would expect, in favor of people, of countries, of free expression. It is a hodgepodge, where the most that can be appealed to is the criteria, the discernment of people to identify what is garbage and what is communication from people or the media.
How does the international press see this crisis in Nicaragua, which is now four years old? Can the Ortega regime impose a kind of news blackout on international public opinion?
It is inevitable to return to history. I have had the fortune to talk with you on different occasions and on some of them I have asked you about the history of Nicaragua and of Daniel Ortega. It is of very high impact to observe the evolution of a character, of two characters in particular who are directly governing Nicaragua. These figures who were an important part of the decision of a society to shake off a dictatorship, by taking power and by perpetuating themselves in power and by doing things with power that are dramatically different from what would have been that origin of being a key figure for a revolution, from having been democratically elected, to what he is today. Ultimately he is nothing more than a dictator; he is a drama for Nicaragua, it is a drama for that biography, it is a drama wherever you see him.
