The Inter-American Press Association (SIP) added its voice to that of other Nicaraguan journalists, trade union organizations and human rights defenders to demand that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega release the communicator and correspondent for Channel 10 in Nandaime, Víctor Ticay, unjustly imprisoned for more than two months.
Through a press release published on its official website, the IAPA reiterates the claim that the Nicaraguan communicator is in jail and was convicted of the alleged crimes of “dissemination of false news and undermining national integrity,” after a judicial process “arbitrary and without judicial guarantees, which took place in the early hours of the morning and without the right to defense.”
The 31-year-old journalist Ticay works as a correspondent for the Canal 10 television newscast. As part of his informative work, on April 5 he broadcast live a Catholic religious procession, in the middle of the Holy Week celebrations. Spreading that procession made the dictatorship uncomfortable and on April 6 they arrested him. Since then he has been deprived of liberty for more than two months and unable to be seen by his relatives.
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Various Nicaraguan journalists have spoken out demanding the release of reporter Ticay, including the director of Confidencial magazine, Carlos Fernando Chamorro; Lucía Pineda Ubau, director of 100% News; Luis Galeano, from Café con Voz; among others.
“This is a crime against freedom of the press and freedom of expression that seeks to silence Nicaraguans, prevent them from having the right to inform, the right to freedom of conscience,” said the director of Confidencial, through a video that circulates the social networks, as part of the campaign.
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While Galeano said that “informing is not a crime, nor should it be a crime, and especially when it comes to telling the truth about the outrages of a criminal and bloody dictatorship like that of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.”
According to the most recent IAPA report on Nicaragua, from last April, more than 185 communicators have been forced into exile since 2018. The regional press body recalls that “the regime expelled and stripped of their nationality 222 political prisoners , including several journalists.