The Nicaraguan Press Freedom Alerts observatory denounced this Friday that the National Police forcibly occupied the headquarters of the Radio Mi Voz station, located in the department of León (northwest).
The complainant organization, made up of independent investigators, reported that the police occupation occurred in the morning, in the city of León, 90 kilometers northwest of Managua.
It also indicated that the station’s staff managed to escape from the facilities before the police arrived.
At least two photographs circulated on social networks showing police patrols installed next to the headquarters of the occupied station.
Although Radio Mi Voz had been off the air since the temporary imprisonment of its owner, Álvaro Montalván, in 2018, it continued to report from its social networks, without following the Nicaraguan government’s agenda.
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This Friday’s newscast was not broadcast on the social networks of Radio Mi Voz, whose last published content appears on Thursday.
Montalván, who fled into exile after being released at the end of 2018, has not ruled on the seizure of his radio station.
At least 160 Nicaraguan journalists and media workers have gone into exile citing security reasons since April 2018, when demonstrations broke out against the government led by Daniel Ortega, according to the regional network Voces del Sur.
Last July, the editorial staff of the newspaper La Prensa, which is now only published digitally, was forced to leave the country after the arrest of two of its employees.
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During this time, the Sandinista government has closed at least 52 media outlets, including 23 last August, the majority owned by the Catholic Church, as well as 15 information spaces, and has confiscated others, including La Prensa, the oldest newspaper and influential in the country.
The Inter-American Press Association (SIP) recently placed Nicaragua at the bottom of the 2022 Chapultepec Index, as countries “without freedom of expression.”
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which has worsened after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second together with his wife, Rosario Murillo. , as vice president, with her main contenders in prison. EFE
