Nicaraguan journalists denounced the censorship, persecution, threats and harassment faced by women and men of the press in the country.
During the 15th Ibero-American Colloquium on Digital Journalism, organized by Knight Center for Journalism, Lucía Pineda Ubau, director of 100% Noticias; Jennifer Ortiz, director of Nicaragua Investigates; Octavio Enríquez, journalist from Confidencial; and Hans Lawrence, a journalist for La Prensa, explained the difficulties of practicing the profession in a country where there is not the slightest respect for freedom of expression and the press.
This April 3, 2022, Pineda Ubau, also released from political prison, recounted the censorship imposed by the Nicaraguan regime that has triggered the confiscation of independent media outlets and, in particular, presented the case of 100% Noticias, which has now been to limit to digital format.
Related news: Clandestine, exile and strength: This is how Nicaraguan journalists commemorate their day
“There are still political prisoners in Nicaragua, there are still journalists imprisoned in Nicaragua,” Pineda recalled, referring to Miguel Mora, Miguel Mendoza and Cristiana Chamorro. The director of 100% Noticias narrated the assault on that newsroom, which ended in December 2018 with the imprisonment of her and Miguel Mora for six months accused of “inciting hatred” for exercising their right to inform.
“I slept on the floor of those torture cells in Nicaragua,” recalled Ubau, who was a hostage of conscience of the dictatorship from the end of December 2018 to June 2019.
Ortiz, for his part, emphasized the “war” declared against the independent press, a “war” that is protected by a legal device that leads the regime to accuse and punish with jail the spread of false news, which would be ruled by the Ortega operators.
“In our country we are considered terrorists. Daniel Ortega considers journalists to be terrorists, criminals, coup plotters,” stressed the founder of the digital media outlet Nicaragua Investiga.
Ortiz, who is in exile for the second time, has been one of the journalists against whom the propagandists of the dictatorship have been most vicious. She left Nicaragua due to the threats she received and the possibility that she would be accused of a crime.
Meanwhile, Enríquez, winner of the 2011 Ortega y Gasset award and the 2014 King of Spain award, raised his voice to denounce the blockade of journalistic work. “Sending a query to the State as a journalist becomes a possibility of jail in Nicaragua,” he lamented.
Ortega’s permanence in power, nepotism, corruption, crushing of public liberties and state control of state powers was questioned by Enríquez. “My children have only known a single president in Nicaragua. Our democracy is destroyed. Nicaragua is a huge prison », he pointed out. Since 2007, Daniel Ortega has been at the head of the Executive and since 2017 his wife, Rosario Murillo, accompanies him as deputy president.
Despite the challenges, Ortiz stressed the importance of the “credibility that the independent media have to be able to continue reporting on the human rights crisis in Nicaragua.”
Pineda Ubau, winner of the international Courage in Journalism 2019 award given by the International Foundation of Women Journalists (IWMF), spoke along the same lines; emphasizing that although “we journalists in Nicaragua have been devastated; We will continue denouncing what is happening.”
The editor of La Prensa, Hans Lawrence, mentioned that in the midst of the exile of more than 100 journalists, death and prison threats, confiscation, and the struggle to survive without advertising and adapting only to digital platforms, “journalism is done in resistance, resilience and reinvention”.
Octavio Enríquez indicated that “in Nicaragua there is a battle, as in the whole world, between truth and lies where the ruling party is trying to maintain a discourse that has no basis in legality. They have to understand Nicaragua in a different way from what the official discourse says. If the official discourse says that in Nicaragua you live beautifully, that in Nicaragua you live in love; if it says that there are freedoms, it is absolutely the opposite».
He added that “we live in an environment where freedoms are repressed to the extreme. Making a video, taking a photo can cost you jail,” Enríquez reproached, but without leaving behind the fact that the strength of national journalism is based “on the credibility of independent media, credibility that we treasure as one of the most precious treasures and values before our audiences.
The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has imposed serious restrictions on access to public information and there is “terror” in people to denounce or give statements to journalists. Many have been arrested, tried and sentenced after airing their opinions in various media outlets.
Despite all this panorama, digital and traditional media fulfill their objective of informing citizens inside and outside Nicaragua. Their presence on social networks helps to massively spread the news they generate with effort and dedication in a climate of state secrecy, persecution, harassment and threats of imprisonment.
