Police officers at the entrance to a La Prensa newspaper office in Managua, Nicaragua, in an image from August 2021. Photo: EFE
The newspaper the printthe oldest in Nicaragua, denounced this Friday that the government of President Daniel Ortega has started a “hunt” against his staff and has arrested two of his drivers.
“The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo started a hunt for the staff of the La Prensa newspaper, including drivers, photographers and journalists, since Wednesday evening,” said that newspaper.
Two workers from La Prensa, which has been circulating in digital format for the conservation of their card since 12 August 2021 because the government, through the General Directorate of Customs, has withheld their card, “They have been kidnapped and it is assumed that they are in the cells of the new Chipote (the national police prison), “the media reported in its digital version.
“The persecution was directed against the team that dealt with Ortega’s expulsion of the Missionaries of Charity (of the order of Mother Teresa of Calcutta) from Nicaragua,” he explained.
Shortly thereafter, the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) condemned this “new wave of persecution” by the Nicaraguan government against the workers of La Prensa, and he called for the release of the reporters and the staff of that newspaper.
Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, took up their fifth term in Nicaragua in January.
Arrests in the middle of the night
According to the complaint, one of the detained drivers was the one who transferred the La Prensa news team during the coverage of the expulsion of the missionaries, who “was kidnapped from his family home on Wednesday at sunset”.
The other driver “was not involved” in that coverage and was arrested by police around midnight Wednesday, he added.
“Subsequently, Police patrols arrived at the home of the reporter who covered the matter and a photographer’s house was ransacked in the early hours of Thursday, “the newspaper continued.
La Prensa asked “that the regime respect the laws” and “that the detainees be released and stop the persecution of the newspaper staff, who are people who only carry out their work, without committing any crime”.
The newspaper recalled that “the history of the daily La Prensa is full of abuses perpetrated by those who feel threatened by the constitutionally established right of citizens to give and receive information”.
“We are facing another attack to shut up,” he said.
The La Prensa newspaper, in an image file. It is no longer published on paper. Photo: REUTERS
The complaint from La Prensa is given 11 months later its seat was occupied by the National Policeand the arrest of its general manager, Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro, sentenced last April to nine years in prison and an economic fine for being accused of money laundering, property or assets.
beliefs
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) considered that what La Prensa denounced “is part of the notorious persecution and expulsion of nuns (of the Missionaries of Charity), but it also becomes persecution and limitation of freedom of expression”.
That body warned that “the already difficult work of independent journalists is becoming more difficult” in Nicaragua.
At the same time, he called for “immediate freedom” for La Prensa motorists “and an end to persecution and threats to other team members who were harassed along with their families in their homes while doing their jobs.”
According to the Voces del Sur regional network, at least 118 Nicaraguan journalists went into exile for security reasons since April 2018, when the socio-political crisis that Nicaragua is going through broke out.
Source: EFE
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Source: Clarin
