Nicaraguan Journalist Fabiola Tercero Missing for 85 Days
HAVANA TIMES – “We want to denounce that since July 12, journalist Fabiola Tercero has been in the condition of forced disappearance. A total of 85 days missing.” This note of alarm appeared in the trimester report of La Fundación por la Libertad de Expresion y Democracia (FLED) [“Foundation for Free Expression and Democracy”], part of the regional “Voices of the South” network. The report, released on October 7, compiles the violations of freedom of the press and expression in Nicaragua.
The NGO – based in Costa Rica, which has welcomed dozens of Nicaraguan journalists – indicated that, to date, no government entity has offered information regarding Tercero’s whereabouts.
“She wasn’t among the group of Nicaraguans released and banished to Guatemala on September 5, as was the case of 135 other political prisoners,” the report added.
It noted that they had received with joy news of the release of journalist Victor Ticay in the above group, through negotiations between the United States and the Nicaraguan government.
“Nonetheless, we condemn the [Nicaraguan] government’s posture of expelling him from the country and stripping him of his nationality,” continued the FLED document. They recalled that Ticay had been imprisoned for covering a religious activity in his native city of Nandaime, in the Pacific region of Nicaragua.
“His case, and that of journalist Tercero, who was known for her work on digital platforms and for a literary project that incentivized reading, are a clear measure of the practice of censorship and violation of the fundamental freedoms on the part of the Nicaraguan government,” the NGO noted.
In 2017, Fabiola Tercero created El rincon de Fabi, [“Fabi’s corner”],a platform to promote reading and to attract new readers in the digital age in Nicaragua, by giving away books in trade or through raffles. She was previously active on feminist media.
On July 12 of this year, Fabiola reported a raid on her home by police agents under the command of Commissioner Lidia Baltodano. She vanished immediately after the raid, and since then her whereabouts have been unknown. There is no evidence she is being held at the La Esperanza women’s prison, where most women detainees end up.
Nicaragua has been in the midst of a social and political crisis since April 2018, a crisis that sharpened with the fraudulent elections of November 2021, in which Daniel Ortega, in power since 2007, declared himself elected for a fifth term, the fourth consecutively.