Freedom of Expression Silenced in Nicaragua
HAVANA TIMES – Nearly six years after the outbreak of the April 2018 protests, there are no signs of the violence that prevailed in Nicaragua during those days. There is no graffiti on the walls or banners with demands or opinions against the Ortega regime that has governed the country since 2007.
There are also no newspapers, opinion programs, radio debates, or television debates; fewer press conferences or public rallies.
The city of Managua, the capital, always looks bustling and active, with markets and shopping centers open at all hours; traffic is usually chaotic, and police patrols roam the streets and avenues all the time.
Every noon, on a radio and television network, the tired and subdued voice of Vice President Rosario Murillo can be heard delivering the news of the regime, social achievements, and propaganda preaching love and praise to God.
The program, without a specific name, is broadcast from Channel 4, historically owned by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, to which other state media are linked. Private media controlled by the presidential family and dozens of radios and social media portals are also linked.
It is an exercise that began in 2007 as “a message from Comrade Rosario, from the Communication and Citizenship Council.”
“Here we are, Valentine’s Day, love, friendship, and for us, love and peace, because it is with love and in peace that we can walk, progress, and build the future of all, that future that is fraternal,” she said on February 13.
Murillo has been the vice president of Nicaragua since 2016, appointed by her husband, President Daniel Ortega, the veteran former guerrilla who returned to power in the November 2006 elections and has remained there ever since.
Murillo is also the regime’s spokesperson and the only authorized voice, among a population of 6.7 million inhabitants of the Central American country, to speak publicly and freely about anything. No one else.
The state of freedom of expression in Nicaragua is one of the most repressed and mistreated rights, says journalist Abigail Hernández, director of the Galería News platform.
Her opinion is proof of her assertion: she says it from three years of exile and through an encrypted messaging application.
“The media and journalists are a good barometer to measure the quality of freedom of expression,” Hernandez tells IPS.
“When we have less and less access to sources of information, when we are limited from reporting from the streets, unable to take photos or videos freely, unable to do our work within the country, it reveals that there is no freedom of expression,” she explains.
She is part of a generation of 242 journalists who have found themselves forced into exile since the protests of 2018, which began against Social Security reforms and ended in a bloodbath caused by military and police forces, with more than 355 civilian deaths, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH).
Martha Irene Sánchez, director of the República 18 platform, agrees with Hernandez. Also from exile.
“The scenarios for exercising freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Nicaragua have not improved since 2018; on the contrary, we are increasingly faced with greater hostility,” she tells IPS.
She is also a member of Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN), a professional organization that emerged after the protests, whose members, in total, went into exile.
“The repression mechanisms of the Ortega and Murillo regime have escalated to dramatic and unimaginable levels. A simple opinion expressed on social networks or a criticism of the regime could lead you to jail or exile,” Sánchez points out.
She gives the example of Víctor Ticay, a local journalist in Nandaime, a municipality in the department of Granada, who one day went out to cover a procession during the Catholic Holy Week of 2023.
The procession had not been authorized by the police, whose officers arrived to interrupt the religious ceremony, and Ticay filmed the parishioners fleeing from the patrols through the streets of the town.
He was arrested, accused of spreading false news and treason to the homeland, and sentenced to eight years in prison in a mock trial.
Guillermo Medrano, director of the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy, explains to IPS that between 2020 and 2021, the Nicaraguan regime approved a series of laws that criminalize journalism and freedom of expression.
A study Medrano’s group carried out was presented in September 2023 in San Josée Costa Rica, a neighboring country of Nicaragua and a center of exile from the country. The study revealed a record of 1,329 violations of press freedom, mostly perpetrated by state agents in the period from 2018 to 2023.
The actions were taken against 338 Nicaraguan journalists and 78 media outlets between April 2018 and April 2023.
This includes the police intervention in several media outlets such as 100% Noticias, Confidencial, Trinchera de la Noticia, Radio Darío, and La Prensa, the last newspaper circulating in Nicaragua until August 2022.
According to Medrano, the Special Law on Cybercrimes, approved in October 2020, mandates jail terms for the use of information “that in normal democracies should be freely accessible public information.”
In theory, this legislation aims to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and punish crimes committed through information and communication technologies to the detriment of individuals or legal entities.
The press freedom advocate also points out that the Ortega-Murillo administration, which controls all state institutions and powers, as well as the security forces, established the Law on Defense of the People’s Rights to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace, in force since December 22, 2020.
This law, at the discretion of judges and prosecutors, establishes the crime of “treason to the homeland,” which orders the exile and denationalization of the accused, as well as life imprisonment through a reform of the penal system.
More than 180 persons have already been judicially processed under these laws, and at least 22 journalists were denationalized and banished in 2023.
“Under these laws, freedom of expression and the press has become a constitutional right of high risk for those who exercise it within Nicaragua,” denounces Medrano.
A report from the regional organization Voces del Sur details that Nicaragua ended 2023 with new forms of repression and threats to press freedom applied through exile, confiscations, illegal detentions, and harassment and surveillance of the families in Nicaragua of journalists working in exile.
The report warns that the situation is increasing social silence.
In fact, according to that report, between 2018 and the end of 2022, 54 media outlets disappeared, including 31 radios, 15 television channels, and 8 print media. Of the total, 16 media outlets were confiscated, including La Prensa, the country’s leading newspaper.
“The sources, even under conditions of anonymity, are disappearing, and the saddest thing is that the State, through its officials, continues to be the main violators of the right of expression of citizens and the press freedom of journalists,” accuses Medrano.
The Nicaraguan Collective of Human Rights Nunca Más, comprised by human rights defenders and activists in exile, states that the Ortega-Murillo administration “has carried out an unprecedented attack on freedom of expression in this country.”
The organization details that out of 28 resolutions of precautionary measures for journalists from Latin America, issued by the CIDH since 2018 in terms of freedom of expression, 15 have been about Nicaragua.
However, it affirms that “none of the precautionary measures” have been complied with by the State and, on the contrary, harassment against the beneficiaries has increased.
“And that reveals to us the seriousness of the problem of a small country with disproportionate and unacceptable restrictions on fundamental freedoms,” says one of the organization’s defenders anonymously for security reasons.
These allegations find no answers within Nicaragua, since except for Murillo, no one is authorized to respond. They can only repeat the official discourse: “Nicaragua lives in peace and security.”