The newspaper La Prensa announced that it will sue the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo for the confiscation of its facilities. The assets of the newspaper company total more than 20 million dollars and another 11 million dollars for the retention of the paper for almost two years.
The newspaper is preparing the lawsuit to present it to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and other international human rights organizations, as revealed by La Prensa on its website this Thursday, May 9, upon completing 1,000 days of occupation of its offices. offices in Managua.
Related news: Murillo “celebrates” anniversary of the confiscation of the newspaper La Prensa
«One thousand days after the theft of the industrial plant where the newspaper LA PRENSA was produced for decades, the Ortega Murillo dictatorship has not managed to erase the trace of the Paper Republic, nor consolidate the José Coronel Urtecho Cultural and Polytechnic Center, which it installed there.» , the newspaper wrote.
The newspaper’s facilities were divided into the newsroom, the press, workshops, commercial printing press, warehouses, newspaper library, offices of the sales, circulation, marketing, accounting and administration departments. The entire complex is valued at about 20 million dollars.
“There are also damages that have not yet been quantified, including the loss of profits from at least a thousand days of use of the facilities, which include the inventories in process, which are the works of the printing company’s clients that were left on the premises at the time. of theft,” noted the media outlet that now only publishes its digital version.
Another of the great losses with the confiscation of La Prensa is the theft of the newspaper’s newspaper library, which would be valued at half a million dollars, according to experts consulted by the newspaper.
“The newspaper archive brings together the collection of 96 years of LA PRENSA publications, but also of all the newspapers that existed in the country in the last century, as well as collections of magazines and photographs,” the web publication noted.
The taking of La Prensa
On August 13, 2021, the facilities of the newspaper La Prensa were confiscated. The general manager and secretary of the board of directors Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro was arrested that same day, after the Police transferred him to the Judicial Assistance Directorate, known as “El Nuevo Chipote”, in Managua, supposedly with the excuse that he would sign some documents, however they left him detained and kept him imprisoned for a year and a half.
Prior to the closure of La Prensa, Holmann Chamorro had denounced that the General Directorate of Customs (DGA) had withheld the paper to block the circulation of the newspaper, so the decision had been made to suspend the printed edition and remain digital.
The newspaper was forced to lay off several of its workers, including journalists, layout designers, drivers, newspaper technicians, publications and classifieds staff, and proofreaders, as part of the measures that the newspaper has taken, after which was forced to close by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship.
Later it was learned that all the workers in the Finance areas were fired, which included Billing, Treasury, Portfolio and Collection, Warehouse and General Services. In addition, all the staff of the Commercial Printing Press were “swept away.” The Hoy newspaper team would also have been completely deactivated.
