The newspaper La Prensa, the oldest in Nicaragua with almost 100 years of history, denounced this Monday that the government of President Daniel Ortega began to dismantle its facilities raided in August 2021.
According to a newspaper articlein the facilities located on the northern highway, in Managua, construction works are carried out and some people move machinery and equipment.
La Prensa stressed that with this “Ortega and Murillo specify the de facto confiscation of the assets of the industrial plant of La Prensa”, and recalled that said action is prohibited in the Political Constitution of Nicaragua that “guarantees the right of private property of the assets furniture and real estate”.
The media outlet pointed out that La Prensa’s assets are around 10 million dollars, according to an appraisal made by the company at the beginning of 2021, which includes offices, warehouses, parking and construction works.
The Ortega government raided the newspaper La Prensa on August 13, 2021 and arrested its general manager, Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro, a day later.
The National Police alleged that these events were due to an ongoing investigation against the newspaper for the alleged crime of “customs fraud and laundering of money, property and assets.”
Holmann is currently serving a sentence of nine years in prison after being found guilty of money laundering by a judge close to President Ortega.
After Lorenzo’s arrest, the newspaper has remained only in its digital edition and recently took its entire Editorial Office abroad after denouncing a “brutal persecution” of Ortega against his reporters, which consisted of raids on the houses of several journalists and collaborators.
Same purpose as other means
The “confiscation” denounced by the newspaper La Prensa is similar to what other media outlets critical of Ortega have experienced in Nicaragua, such as Canal 100%Noticias, whose founder, Miguel Mora, is also in prison, as is Holmann. .
In the facilities of 100%Noticias, the government built a rehabilitation center, after the dispossession of its facilities, and placed a sign at the entrance with the image of Ortega and Murillo.
The same thing happened with the building where the Confidencial week newsroom operated, directed by journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, son of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who is currently in exile in Costa Rica.
At the time, Chamorro said that “they try to cover up the robbery, seal it, by opening a health center, but there is the unmistakable stamp of the dictatorship.”
“There we see the sign of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. The dictatorship has erected a crime against freedom of the press and expression. There Ortega and Murillo imposed what they have never been able to do: confiscate ideas,” said Chamorro.
Meanwhile, Lucía Pineda Ubau, former political prisoner and current director of 100% Noticias, indicated at the time that the television channel “was stolen and presented as a trophy to its fans as a symbol of victory.”
“They stole an entire television channel, and they present it as a trophy to their fans, as a symbol of victory, but actually a symbol of their defeat because they couldn’t silence the truth and independent journalism,” Ubau said.
The situation of journalism in Nicaragua is critical as a result of 2021 when protests arose against President Daniel Ortega.
Only in the first 15 days of August, Ortega through the media regulator, Telcorcanceled the frequency to 17 communication companies located in various departments of the country.
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