«Nicaragua is a country dominated by fear; a country taken over by a police state; a country in which even waving the blue and white of the flag can be seen as a crime, just like saying mass in a rural church or celebrating the triumph of a beauty queen…” This is how the report begins «Nicaragua: life in the catacombs»which was published in January 2024 in the Spanish newspaper El País.
This journalistic publication told from the bowels of a country subjugated by one of the most ruthless dictatorships of recent decades on the American continent, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, was not signed by its author. «The journalist who wrote this report from Managua cannot sign it for security reasons», says the newspaper El País in the header of the publication.
And despite the secrecy and precautions, that same journalist was besieged for months by members of the Police, which operates as a repressive body under the command of the Sandinista dictatorship. He was forced to report with photos, videos or WhatsApp messages to a police agent designated to “attend to him.” Finally, the journalist decided to leave Nicaragua and take refuge in Costa Rica.
The journalist is Julian Navarrete. Now he can say it with relative security and can also accept in public and without fear of being imprisoned, that this work entitled “Nicaragua: life in the catacombs”, which in January he did not dare to sign, is his, and he can receive with joy the news that said report was selected as a finalist for the IV “Carlos Alberto Montaner” Young Journalism Award.
Navarrete’s report portrays precisely the consequences to which opponents, religious people, students and journalists in Nicaragua are subjected. For those who practice their profession it has become a crime that is harshly punished by the Sandinista regime.
«A little more than three months ago I was forced into exile, after the Police persecuted me for my journalistic work… This particular work portrays the way in which the regime persecutes its critics. And that’s what happened to me, just a few months after this report was published,” the journalist tells Article 66 from his new home in San José.
For Navarrete, the mere fact of being nominated is a triumph, since it is clear that journalists with quality work from all Spanish-speaking countries aspire to the award.
«I have mixed feelings: on the one hand I am happy because, as the director of the Vargas Llosa Chair “Due to the quality of the works presented, the mere fact of being on the list of finalists is already a triumph”… But it is also sad to receive the news far from my homeland.
He Nicaraguan journalist He states that if he wins the award he would dedicate it to Nicaraguan journalists who, unfortunately, “become targets of the regime.” Navarrete also considers that this type of recognition is good for exposing, in this type of forum, the serious human rights situation that Nicaragua is experiencing.
“The recognitions, I think, should be used for that: that the works are read more and that this serves to continue talking about the crisis in Nicaragua, which at an international level is already talked about less and less, and is becoming normalized,” he says.
He Young Journalism Award 2024 It was convened by Atlas Network and the Vargas Llosa Chair and the competing works had to be published from October 2023 to October 11 of this year. The award seeks to recognize the values of Ibero-American journalism and factors such as excellence, journalistic rigor, ethical consistency and the defense of freedom in the exercise of journalism were taken into account.
The winner of this fourth prize will be announced at the America-Europe International Forum, organized in November by the International Foundation for Freedom and will receive 10 thousand dollars. Additionally, you will be invited, all expenses paid, to deliver a speech on the award-winning topic at the annual meeting of the Atlas Network Latin American Forum, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in February 2025.
Julián Navarrete’s career
Julián Navarrete graduated in Communication from the University of Commercial Sciences (UCC) of Managua. He began his journalistic practice in the media Confidencial, then became part of the team of Magazine magazine, of the newspaper La Prensa, and more recently he joined the investigative media Divergent. In addition, he has published in digital media in Mexico, El Salvador and Cuba; and has collaborated with the American media The Wall Street Journal.
