2023-05-03 08:46:00
Valencia, May 3, 2023. On behalf of the entire CONFIDENCIAL team and the independent journalists in Nicaragua, we express our deep gratitude for this Freedom of Expression award that the Union of Valencian Journalists gives us on World Press Freedom Day.
We dedicate this recognition to the memory of the journalist Angel Gahona, assassinated on April 21, 2018 while providing coverage to the civic protests in Nicaragua, a murder that has gone unpunished for five years. And we also dedicate it to our colleague José Rubén Zamora, director of El Periódico in Guatemala, who after being imprisoned for nine months, is today facing a trial that threatens freedom of expression in Guatemala, promoted by the regime of Alejandro Gianmmattei.
This recognition honors us for his trajectory of more than four decades and above all encourages us to continue doing journalism, now from exile, to continue reporting and defeating the censorship that the dictatorship intends to impose in Nicaragua.
On February 15, 94 Nicaraguan citizens were stripped of our nationality by the regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, in an illegal, unconstitutional act, and in violation of international treaties signed by the State of Nicaragua.
In the list of the 94 we include 11 journalists, directors of communication media in exile such as CONFIDENCIAL, the medium that I have directed for more than 25 years, 100% Noticias, Article 66, Nicaragua Investiga, Radio Darío, Divergentes, Café with Voice, and other means.
Six days earlier, on February 9, another 222 people – all prisoners and political prisoners – were released, exiled to the United States, and stripped of their Nicaraguan nationality in an act of political revenge.
Among those released, there were 12 people linked to the media: a sportswriter and blogger, three directors of the newspaper La Prensa, a founding journalist of the cable television channel 100% Noticias, a political commentator for channel 10 television, several journalists premises, and even two drivers from the newspaper La Prensa, whose “crime” was having transported the reporters who covered the news of the expulsion of the nuns of Mother Teresa from Calcutta, in July 2022.
All of them had been convicted without any evidence for alleged crimes of “conspiracy against national sovereignty”, “money laundering”, and “propagation of false news”, and remained in solitary confinement or under house arrest for up to 600 days.
As a result of political persecution, in Nicaragua there are no longer independent sources to whom information, data, or an assessment of the facts can be attributed. All without exception request that their identities be protected in order to inform or give their opinion, for fear of official reprisals, which include jail.
This double criminalization of freedom of the press and freedom of expression – to silence journalists, information sources, and freedom of opinion – represents the last stage of a long process of demolition of the rule of law that has occurred in the last 16 years. .
Under the de facto police state imposed since 2018, in Nicaragua there is no freedom of assembly or mobilization. In 2021, the regime annulled political competition and the holding of free elections. In 2022, it increased its relentless persecution against civil society, canceling more than 3,200 non-governmental organizations. And in 2023 the persecution against the Catholic Church escalated, sentenced the bishop of Matagalpa Rolando Álvarez to 26 years in prison, sentenced to 26 years in prison, and even decreed the prohibition of religious processions.
However, journalism from exile resists as the last reserve of all the violated freedoms. Since the political crisis erupted five years ago, during the civic protests in April 2018, the repression against journalists has included murders and physical attacks, censorship of television, physical destruction of media, customs blockade of newspapers, culminating in the closure and confiscation of media outlets, the imposition of repressive laws, and the imprisonment of journalists.
The last kidnapping of a journalist occurred during the past Holy Week. Victor Ticay, a correspondent for channel 10 in Nandaime, was jailed for the alleged crime of having broadcast a religious procession on Holy Wednesday on Facebook.
Doing journalism under a dictatorship is an act of resistance to continue reporting and telling the truth. My own newsroom, CONFIDENCIAL, has been confiscated and assaulted twice by the Police, in December 2018 and in May 2021. But we never stopped reporting for a single day through digital platforms and social networks.
Ortega also confiscated the cable channel 100% Noticias and the newspaper La Prensa. However, he has never been able to confiscate journalism, and the confiscated media continue to report from exile.
The regime has also closed more than 50 local radio and television outlets, and more than 150 journalists have been forced into exile. A part of them have been reorganized around 25 digital media, mainly in Costa Rica, Spain and the United States. However, more than 30% of journalists are engaged in other jobs to survive, or have left the profession for fear of reprisals against their families.
Since mid-2021, I have been in exile for the second time in Costa Rica, to avoid being silenced in Nicaragua with an infamous criminal accusation and arrest warrant. All of my writing, and practically all of the independent media, are working from exile.
My television shows Esta Semana and Esta Noche are censored on broadcast television and cable, but we continue to reach an audience of more than 425,000 subscribers through the CONFIDENCIAL YouTube channel and Facebook Live. Social networks represent an extraordinary vehicle for defeating censorship, but they have also become a space for disinformation and political polarization that competes against the independent press.
Consequently, the resistance of the press also requires quality journalism, without falling into activism. The effectiveness of the press depends on it in the face of the propaganda machinery of the five television channels, dozens of radio stations, and Internet portals, which the ruling family manages as private businesses at the expense of the State.
Organizations defending human rights and freedom of the press, in America and Europe, have done an extraordinary job to document and make visible the persecution against the press in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, where there is no rule of law and therefore no there is no protection for journalists
But, ultimately, our only protection lies in doing more and better journalism to strengthen the credibility of the media and the relationship with our audiences.
Exile is no longer a temporary emergency situation that forces us to leave and relocate to another country, but rather a permanent, medium-term condition.
We face the challenges of protecting our sources and collaborators, ensuring internet and digital security, and raising verification standards to corroborate information originating from anonymous sources, and continue to publish reliable information.
We also face the challenge of the economic sustainability of journalism in exile, when the problems caused by unfair competition with technology giants are added to the criminalization of our advertisers.
The crisis forces us to look for new economic management models to finance the independence of the media, through international donations, contributions from the audience, and commercial monetization.
A paradigm shift is also needed in international cooperation agencies that support independent journalism. It is necessary to recognize that the survival of the press in exile, not only in Nicaragua, but also in Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and other countries, is a democratic imperative that requires long-term support strategies. term
Our journalistic investigations have not produced any change in the public policies of an authoritarian regime that is not designed for accountability. However, many of these stories, data, and testimonies represent valuable inputs to feed investigations into human rights violations in Nicaragua, such as the report presented by the UN Group of Experts on crimes against humanity before the Council of UN Human Rights.
Together with the relatives of the victims of repression, journalism has documented the first draft of truth and memory, to lay the foundations for justice and the restitution of democracy in Nicaragua.
The collapse of the rule of law in Nicaragua and the consolidation of the dictatorship is also a mirror in which the Central American press is seeing itself today, in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, threatened by authoritarian tendencies.
And the Nicaraguan experience shows that the resistance of the press in exile under a dictatorship is not enough to clear the way for democratic change, but as long as it persists, doing more and better journalism, it will keep the flame of press freedom burning, as the last reserve of all liberties.
Thank you so much.
*Nicaraguan journalist. Director of Confidencial.digital
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