34% of Nicaraguan journalists left the profession in the last year, the vast majority due to “political pressure,” a recent study revealed on Wednesday. disclosed on Wednesday by the organization Independent Journalists of Nicaragua (PCIN).
Martha Irene Sánchez, director of the PCIN told the voice of america that the main decision that has led reporters to abandon their profession has had to do with the political pressure exercised by the government of Daniel Ortega for the past five years, when there were major protests against him.
“What led them to abandon the trade has had to do with all the political pressure, with all this institutionalized violence that has remained sustained as a result of 2018,” Sánchez said.
Ortega’s last action against some journalists was the cancellation of your Nicaraguan nationality, after they were accused by the justice system of “treason against the homeland.” The government directed that their assets in the country also be expropriated.
David Quintana, one of the journalists who was stripped of his nationality, told the VOAthat these actions seek to “torment or persecute the reporters who make him uncomfortable” even in exile, as is his case in Costa Rica.
For her part, Irene Sánchez, from the PCIN organization, stressed that in addition to fear, there are other reasons that force reporters to desert the profession: economics.
According to the communicator, exiled reporters face adversities in countries where they seek refuge for safety, such as Costa Rica, the United States and Spain, mainly, where the cost of living is much higher than in Nicaragua.
“Imagine, some with salaries of 100 dollars, for example, it doesn’t give you anything outside of Nicaragua,” laments Sánchez.
José Cardoza, from the PCIN organization, agrees with Sánchez and assures that the reporters who decide to continue in Nicaragua censor themselves to survive and avoid ending up like some 50 other media outlets that have been closed in the last four years.
“Journalists and media directors are preferring to address other issues that have nothing to do with social, political or even economic issues,” Cardoza emphasized.
This March 1, which commemorates National Journalist Day, reporters released the report assuring that they want to make visible that the profession is going through the worst moment in its modern history.
“What President Ortega’s government wants is to censor what it wants is to impose fear,” he told the VOA journalist Noel Miranda, from Article 66.
Pro-government journalists harangue
For its part, the Ortega government celebrated this day with a proclamation read by pro-government journalists who, among other things, said they celebrated the “deportation” of more than 222 political prisoners Nicaraguans who were welcomed by Washington.
“Patriotic Communicators, we want to express our support for the decision to withdraw the nationality of terrorists, traitors to the country and mercenaries fugitives from justice who have persisted without success in their perverse and malignant desire to generate destabilization through campaigns of lies and hate, always obedient to the interests of the empires”, said the official reporters.
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