Whenever Victor Ticay sent a report to the channel 10 where he worked as a correspondent, his family made a kind of chorus in front of the television to watch it. “It was a source of pride for us,” the relatives told the voice of america with some nostalgia. But they added that they never thought that “the fact of being a journalist would become a nightmare” for them.
Ticay is the journalist most recently detained by the government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua this year, while the social crisis who lives in the Central American country. His family knows nothing more about him nor have they been able to see him after his arrest on Thursday of Holy Week.
The journalist was arrested one day after broadcasting on Facebook Live an activity of the Catholic Church on its news page “The cover”.
The reporter could be sentenced to up to 8 years in prison under the controversial Special Cybercrime Law approved by the National Assembly at the end of November 2020. According to organizations that defend press freedom, the legislature has been used to prosecute journalists, activists and opponents.
In his town Nandaime, a municipality belonging to the city of Granada, south of Managua, the residents ask the family about his whereabouts. “They tell us that we have managed to see him, but we don’t even know about his judicial process other than what the media publish,” says a relative who asks not to be quoted for fear.
Ricardo Borge, a journalist from the city of Nandaime, who is now in exile in Costa Rica, told the VOA that Ticay had become “a benchmark for information in the town” to the point that when something happened, everyone looked for its digital platform.
According to Borge, the journalist Ticay began to be harassed in 2018, when he covered the demonstrations against President Ortega, and he remembers that on one occasion a government fanatic rammed him with his truck and threatened him with a firearm.
In fact, Ticay made a public complaint at that time and identified his assailant Pedro Morales Moraga, who then worked for the Nandaime Mayor’s Office, who pulled out a firearm and pointed it at him, calling him a liar.
After the incident, he went to the police station in this town to file a formal complaint, Ticay said on his Facebook in June 2020.
But it wasn’t until Easter this year that, according to Borge, “they found a way to stop him.” “We Nandaimeños feel shocked and impotent because we could not do anything for his arrest.”
It is known through the local Nicaraguan media that Ticay was accused of issuing false news, however, no record of him appears in the judicial system.
“He seems to have disappeared,” says journalist Gerall Chávez, director of the digital media Current Nicaragua, and he says it precisely because of the lack of judicial evidence against Ticay. “We demand proof of life.”
He comes from a humble family
Ticay is the youngest son of nine siblings. His parents, Cecilio Ticay and Cándida Ruiz, come from a rural community in Nandaime.
His relatives say that with a lot of effort they managed to pay for Victor’s studies until high school, but when it was time to complete his university studies, the young man looked for other alternatives for the expenses incurred in his career, which culminated in 2015.
“Victor had a job that helped him pay for his studies, until he finally managed to find a job on a local television channel, then he did a newscast on a radio and thus he grew until he reached a national medium,” says a relative.
“We called him the famous Ticay in the middle of jokes,” says a relative.
They launch a campaign in favor of Ticay
This June 6 marks two months since his arrest and for that reason journalist organizations launched a campaign demanding his release.
The journalist Lucía Pineda Ubau, who was in prison for almost six months for covering the protests against Ortega in 2018, regrets the arrest of Ticay and indicates that “no one should be imprisoned for reporting.”
“It’s unfair, no one should be in jail for reporting,” he said.
The journalist Martha Irene Sánchez, director of the media, agreed with that republic 18who sees “a new repressive escalation of the regime” against reporters from localities within Nicaragua.
The Ortega government has not referred to the campaign of Nicaraguan journalists demanding the release of Víctor Ticay. However, Vice President Rosario Murillo has repeatedly classified journalists as information “terrorists” for allegedly spreading false information about the Sandinista administration.
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and activate notifications, or follow us on social networks: Facebook, Twitter and instagram.
