Nicaragua commemorated Journalist’s Day with 200 exiled communicators and 23 declared “traitors to the homeland”

Nicaragua commemorated this Wednesday the National Journalists Day with cases 200 communicators in exile and others 23 denationalized and declared “traitors to the fatherland” by the regime of Daniel Ortega, which made journalism a business in “crisis”, This was alerted by the Movement of Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN).

“The reasons that lead to qualifying Nicaraguan journalism as a profession in crisis are the number of journalists who have chosen to work outside their profession, to protect their lives.freedom and security,” said the PCIN in a study on the situation of freedom of press and the conditions that Nicaraguan informants go through to practice their profession.

According to this study, Nicaraguan communicators live under “high risk” to practice the professionand they must resort to self-censorship “as a result of the violence and persecution” of the state, in the context of the political and social crisis that Nicaragua has been going through since April 2018.

Of 116 journalists consulted for this study, 66% continue to practice the profession and the rest have ceased reporting due to state persecution, fear of personal attack or because they have decided to migrate to improve their quality of life, according to the PCIN.

“We commemorate this National Journalist’s Day by saying that we are not giving up yet“, he told the news agency ECE portal manager 100% News, Lucia Pineda, one of the journalists deprived of her nationality by the Sandinista dictatorship.

“They imprisoned us, confiscated our television channel 100% NewsMy house, they stripped us of our nationality, but it’s a sign that we are doing our job“, assessed Pineda, who was imprisoned in the context of the crisis in Nicaragua and then released.

“Our commitment today is to reiterate that we will continue to report the truth about what is happening in Nicaragua, if the dictatorship (Ortega) doesn’t like it, that’s their problem, it’s not our problem” , he added. .

Pineda argued that “Nicaraguan journalists are always committed to reporting the facts as they are, whether the Ortega Murillo regime likes it or not”.

“We are resisting with courage, with a lot of faith, that things in Nicaragua are going to change at any moment,” he added.

At least 23 Nicaraguan journalists, critics of dictator Daniel Ortega, have been declared “traitors to the countryand deprived of their nationality and some of their property, among a total of 317 opponentsaccording to recent judgments of the Court of Appeal of Managua.

Among the journalists affected are Carlos Fernando Chamorro, winner of the 38th Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award and director of Confidential there This week; Wilfredo Miranda, collaborator in Nicaragua of the Spanish newspaper The country and winner of the Ibero-American Journalism Prize of the King of Spain 2018.

Also digital media directors Lucía Pineda (100% News), Luis Galeano (Café con Voz), Jennifer Ortíz (Nicaragua Investiga), Patricia Orozco (Onda Local), Manuel Díaz (Bacanal Nica), Álvaro Navarro (Article 66), David Quintana (Ecological Bulletin), Aníbal Toruño (Radio Darío), Santiago Aburto (BTN News) and Jimmy Guevara (Criteria).

Also, communicators Sofía Montenegro, Silvia Nadide Gutiérrez and Camilo de Castro Belli, sons of the poet Gioconda Belli, who also had their nationality withdrawn.

The list includes released prisoners Miguel Mendoza, Miguel Mora, Manuel Antonio Obando, Wilberto Artola, Sergio Cáárdenas, Roberto Larios, Cristiana Chamorro and Juan Lorenzo Holmann, the latter general director of the newspaper. The press.

The National Assembly, under the control of the regime, held an extraordinary session during which, he said, he paid tribute “to journalism attached to the fatherland and to sovereignty”.

(With information from EFE)

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