Ortega Bans EFE News Agency Rep in Nicaragua

Nicaraguan journalist Luis Felipe Palacios, delegate of the EFE news agency. Photo: Taken from Facebook

By EFE / Confidential

HAVANA TIMES – Nicaraguan authorities prohibited the entry to the country of the EFE News Agency representative in Managua, the Nicaraguan Luis Felipe Palacios, when he was preparing to return to the country after a work trip in Panama.

Palacios began working at EFE in 2006 and was appointed the agency’s representative in Nicaragua 2011. He was unable to board his return flight home on November 21st in Miami. The airline told him the Nicaraguan authorities had denied him entry.

“Entry has not been authorized by the Nicaraguan Immigration authorities. You will not be allowed to board,” informs the email sent to Palacios by Avianca airlines.

The 44-year-old journalist had attended the commemorative events in Panama for the 50th anniversary of EFE’s presence in Central America, in which the agency’s president, Gabriela Cañas, participated, as well as the rest of the media’s representatives in Central American countries and other senior managers.

Luis Felipe Palacios, who before joining EFE worked between 2002 and 2006 with Nicaragua’s La Prensa newspaper, has covered for the agency the most important events that have occurred in Nicaragua in recent decades. These included the crisis that the country is experiencing after the 2018 protests, presidential summits and natural catastrophes, including the passage of Hurricane “Felix” in 2007.

Palacios has also followed other news issues, such as the granting of asylum to members of the FARC and the break in relations with Colombia due to an attack on Ecuadorian territory or the crisis with Honduras after the coup against Manuel Zelaya in 2009.

With a degree in Social Communication, specializing in written press, Luis Felipe Palacios is a multimedia journalist who has also covered poetry festivals and interviewed artists, singers, and writers.

Read more from Nicaragua here on Havana Times.