The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo announced on February 13 that it will allocate million-dollar funds “urgently” through the National Technological Institute (Inatec) to maintain the printing press occupied in August 2021 to the newspaper La Prensa.
Through the administrative resolution published in The Gazette Monday, the dictatorship expresses that the printing equipment will be used to reproduce the material that the center requires for its work. The regime will invest 3.25 million córdobas (equivalent to 89,739 dollars) for the maintenance of the machinery.
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“Urgently attend to the rehabilitation of the different printing equipment so that they are in excellent condition and ensure the reproduction of administrative material for teachers and other documents that are needed in educational training,” the publication states. The media outlet’s facilities currently operate as a cultural and polytechnic center.
According to information from La Prensa, the press, like other equipment owned by the newspaper, is highly expensive and specialized machinery. Therefore, there are few trained personnel in the country, forcing the regime to rehire former employees of the media outlet that they themselves annihilated. “Last January, La Prensa learned that they rehired personnel specialized in the management of the rotary press and other commercial printing machines,” they refer.
The newspaper’s machinery also had the capacity to produce books in large quantities, so they could be used in the same way to provide services to the Ministry of Education (Mined).
The Inter-American Press Association (SIP) has expressed concern about “the new improper, illegal and anti-constitutional use that the Daniel Ortega regime of Nicaragua will give to the facilities of La Prensa.” They anticipate that the dictatorship wants to use the newspaper’s presses and rotary presses to publish government propaganda.
“This is a new attempt to use the propaganda machine and lies in order to continue creating their own narrative to deceive the people,” said the president of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Carlos Jornet. , who is journalistic director of La Voz del Interior, Argentina.
