After his forced exile, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper La Prensa, Eduardo Enriquezlamented that in Nicaragua the right to work is being taken away from journalists, since Daniel Ortega’s regime has been in charge of criminalizing this work and persecuting those who exercise it and do not divulge the ruling party’s discourse.
The journalist told the voice of america (VOA) that the staff of the oldest newspaper in Nicaragua “is facing very difficult times,” because reporters, photographers and administrative staff were forced out of the country from one day to the next, due to the persecution of the regime against them for the simple fact to carry out their work.
“Our staff are facing very difficult times. Leaving the country from one day to the next, many people who have already experienced it will be able to understand it, other people who have not experienced it can perhaps imagine how difficult it is, that one day you are at home, with your children. with your father, waking up peacefully working and then at night having to go out and hide; and the next day having to figure out how to leave the country without being caught for simply working,” lamented Enríquez.
Related news: La Prensa removes its workers from Nicaragua in the face of state persecution
La Prensa, with almost 100 years of existence, is one of the newspapers, now only in digital format. most critical of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. That has earned him retaliation since Ortega returned to power in 2007, who has since tried to silence the media outlet.
As a result of the social outbreak in April 2018, the Sandinista dictator increased the persecution of journalists who are not at the end of his government and it was a matter of time before the justice system “fabricated accusations” against La Prensa, said the editor-in-chief.
In 2021, the newspaper was left with only the digital edition because the government blocked the entry of raw material and in that same year its facilities were taken over by the Ortega police. Its general manager, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, was also arbitrarily detained and later sentenced to nine years in prison for the alleged crime of laundering money, property, and assets.
During this attack by the regime against La Prensa, “other editors of the newspaper left the country because it was evident that the actions were against us, but the reporters and photographers continued to work, as well as the editorial and administrative staff,” Eduardo Enríquez told VOA.
Likewise, with “this new wave of repression in which two members of our team (two drivers) have been arrested,” La Prensa decided to remove all the staff from the newsroom, the journalist highlighted.
On July 21, the media outlet reported that journalists, photographers, editors, and other workers at the newspaper were forced to leave Nicaragua irregularly.
Ortega Regime Leads Nicaragua Towards Totalitarianism
Eduardo Enríquez also argued that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo is leading the country “towards a totalitarian situation that is not only expressed in the forced exile of an entire media outlet that is, let’s say, the dean and has historically been the of communication more critical with all the governments».
He stressed that La Prensa had had to close its work in the past due to other “regimes, including the first version of Sandinismo in the eighties, and Somocismo before them,” despite this, its facilities had never been taken over and “it had never been seen this situation of having to take the entire newsroom out of the country to be able to continue working.”
The editor-in-chief of the newspaper called on the “countries of America and the world” to pay attention to what is happening in Nicaragua. “They have to realize that this is not a government, this is an authoritarian, totalitarian regime, rather, in the power of a group of criminals.”
