Nicaraguan journalists are increasingly opting for silence the attacks on freedom of the press to avoid being victims of attacks by the police forces or Sandinista sympathizerswarned the regional network Voces del Sur in a report released this Thursday.
“Voces del Sur regrets that the censorship and silence of the victims in the face of attacks on press freedom continue to win the battle,” said that regional network in a report sent to the press.
He argued that “there are more and more victims who prefer to keep quiet about their complaints to prevent the aggressions of Sandinista fanatics, state workers and police forces increase”.
Voces del Sur clarified that in no way is it blaming the “victims of silence, we are aware of the danger, however we must leave written for history what is happening, because the numerical decrease in cases that is observed does not mean that the attacks have gone down, but the victims have stopped denouncing”.
That network documented a total of nine violations of press freedom last October in Nicaragua (seven against journalists and two against the media).
A journalist had her rights violated three times last October, and it is also the third consecutive month in which she has been the victim of verbal attacks by a Sandinista militant, according to the report.
Voces del Sur, created in 2017, is a regional network of civil society organizations in Latin America that work in coordination to promote and defend freedom of the press and expression, access to information, and security and protection. of journalists.
Journalists continue to go into exile
On the other hand, last month “at least four journalists were forced into exile” and in one of the cases the communicator traveled to Costa Rica to visit his family and when trying to return he was told that he did not have authorization to enter his country, he indicated.
At least 160 journalists and media workers from Nicaragua have been exiled, for security reasons, since April 2018, when demonstrations broke out against the government led by Daniel Ortega, according to last month’s report.
Voces del Sur also regretted that the Government maintained “the policy of lack of access to public information” before and during the municipal voting process carried out last Sunday.
He also expressed concern about the use of the Special Cybercrime Law “as an instrument to accuse dissident citizens”and mentioned the case of 13 opponents who were accused of the alleged crimes of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and propagation of false news.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which has been accentuated after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth consecutive and second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo. , as vice president, with her main contenders in prison.
In this last stage of Government, Ortega has closed at least 54 media outletsincluding 23 last August, the majority owned by the Catholic Church, as well as 15 information spaces, and has confiscated different media outlets, including La Prensa, the oldest and most influential newspaper in the country.
