The official and Sandinista media in Nicaragua rejected on Tuesday the European decision to block the Russian state media Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik under the accusation of disinformation about the war in Ukraine
“Our solidarity with the Sputnik news agency and with the RT television network, which are currently facing censorship and attacks against freedom of expression by the United States Government and the European Union,” said the coordinator of Media of the Communication and Citizenship Council of the Nicaraguan Government, Daniel Edmundo Ortega Murillo.
“We reject these harmful actions that threaten press freedom,” Ortega Murillo, one of the sons of the country’s president, Daniel Ortega, and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, continued through official media.
“On behalf of the Sandinista media in Nicaragua, all our solidarity with Sputnik and with RT. We are with you in the permanent fight for the truth,” he added.
Ortega Murillo made these statements during a virtual meeting between representatives of the Russian state agency Sputnik and journalists from the Media of the Council of Communication and Citizenship of Nicaragua.
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The director of the Sputnik regional bureau in Montevideo, Oleg Vyazmitinov, thanked Ortega’s son for his words, “because they are so important for us, for the agency, at this time when professionally they are not the easiest, but we continue to work with dedication and putting all our efforts as professionals to tell the truth”.
Anastasia Bychkova, representative of the Sputnik Department of International Cooperation, also participated in the virtual meeting for Russia; and for Nicaragua, in addition to Ortega Murillo, the director of El 19 Digital, Kiara Fuentes, and the journalist Alberto Mora, of Channel 4 television.
Nicaragua’s “fellow Sandinista journalists, patriotic communicators and journalists from the Citizen Power Media” were also present virtually, according to official information.
The double standard of the regime
For Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Nicaraguan president is one of the leaders who has entered the list of “predators of freedom” of the press for his policy of “economic suffocation” and “judicial censorship” of independent media.
The state authorities keep busy the newsrooms of the television channel 100% Noticias, the digital newspaper Confidencial and the newspaper La Prensa, the oldest in Nicaragua and which now circulates via the Internet.
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In addition, at least 120 Nicaraguan journalists have gone into exile since April 2018, when demonstrations against the Sandinista government broke out, citing security reasons, according to a report by the Nicaraguan Never Again Human Rights Collective.
The journalists Cristiana Chamorro and Miguel Mora, who aspired to the Presidency of Nicaragua for the opposition, and the sports writer Miguel Mendoza, were recently convicted of crimes considered to be treason or money laundering.
