PEN International, Artist At Risk Connection, PEN Argentina, PEN Quebec and PEN San Miguel de Allende, with the support of other PEN Centers in the Americas, created the International Observatory «Ojo con Nicaragua». This is a space where the Nicaraguan government’s sustained attempts at censorship are exposed and documented.
Gioconda Belli will receive the Honoris Causa Doctorate
The renowned poet and novelist Gioconda Belli, president of the PEN Nicaragua Center , will receive the Honoris Causa Doctorate from the University of Costa Rica (UCR) next May , the university announced when recognizing the important literary career of the Nicaraguan writer, exiled in Spain.
The University Council of the UCR decided to honor Belli, who was recently awarded the Reina Sofía Ibero-American Poetry Prize of Spain, for «her career and in gratitude for her contribution to the construction of a critical consciousness, the dissemination of the arts, the defense of freedom of expression and human rights».
The poet thanked her for the Honoris Causa Doctorate with a brief publication on her X account: «Receiving it from a University with such prestige and from a country that I admire and love is an enormous honor and joy,» she wrote.
On February 15, 2023, the Nicaraguan authorities deprived Gioconda Belli of her nationality and confiscated her assets, along with 93 other Nicaraguans declared like her «traitors to the country» by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. The same measure had been applied a week earlier to 222 imprisoned opponents who were released and deported to the United States.
Ortega has closed or confiscated 54 media outlets and 16 information spaces
The repression by Daniel Ortega’s government against the independent press continues to increase. A report by the Nicaragua Never Again Human Rights Collective, based in Costa Rica, revealed that from April 2018 to the end of 2023, more than 54 media outlets and 16 information spaces were closed, confiscated or destroyed.
At least seven journalists and communicators were imprisoned in that same period and one of them, Víctor Ticay, a correspondent for television channel 10, has been in prison for 11 months and was sentenced to eight years in prison for covering a religious procession during Holy Week in 2023.
The report highlights that the forced exile of at least 242 journalists who since 2018 have been victims of threats, persecution or arrest warrants, has meant painful changes in their lives and has caused them serious economic difficulties, which even led some to seek other Livelihoods.
However, the desire to continue reporting from exile led to the emergence of 24 digital platforms abroad, which fight every day against censorship and the «information blackout» in which the regime intends to plunge Nicaragua.
Failure to comply with precautionary measures
In another study, the Nicaragua Never Again Collective reported that of the 28 resolutions of precautionary measures for journalists in Latin America that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has issued since 2018 regarding freedom of expression, 15 have been about Nicaragua: » And that reveals to us the seriousness of the problem of a small country with disproportionate and unacceptable restrictions on fundamental freedoms.»
However, the report states that in Nicaragua «none of the precautionary measures» have been fulfilled due to the Ortega regime’s lack of will.
According to the Chapultepec Index, presented at the 78th General Assembly of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), Nicaragua is experiencing the worst setback in press freedom in Latin America, with 300 attacks on journalists and more than 700 attacks on media outlets.
Media closes due to lack of resources
Of the old and new Nicaraguan digital platforms that operate from exile, at least three have ceased operations due to lack of resources, according to journalist José Cardoza, director of the organization Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN), founded after the crisis of 2018.
Juan Daniel Treminio, a Nicaraguan journalist exiled in Guatemala, from where he directs the digital media Coyuntura, said for his part that it is difficult to access financial support to continue operating.
«There are increasingly fewer opportunities and less support» for digital media, said Treminio and lamented that to obtain resources abroad, rigorous procedures must be carried out and in many cases there is no positive response. «Our reality is hard, it is difficult, but we are facing it with our qualities and our strength,» he added.
The Government radicalizes its authoritarianism
The year 2024 advances in Nicaragua with greater uncertainties and few favorable forecasts for the population, due to the authoritarian radicalization of the regime led by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to ensure at all costs its permanence in power and dynamic succession,» said a report from the Center for Transdisciplinary Studies of Central America (CETCAM), an NGO directed by Nicaraguan sociologist Elvira Cuadra.
According to CETCAM, the year 2023 and the beginning of 2024 have been marked by a process of institutionalization of the «de facto police state» that the Ortega Murillos imposed on Nicaragua since 2018, when the popular rebellion broke out. This «institutionalization» seeks to legalize surveillance, control and repression over the entire society and over specific groups of people.
For CETCAM, this is Ortega’s objective with the restructuring of key institutions such as the Police, the Judiciary, the foreign service and mayors’ offices, as well as the radicalization of the repertoires of repression with human rights violations: banishments, denationalizations, immigration detentions and refusals to enter the country, among others.
«Added to this is the destruction of the valuable social capital that Nicaraguan society had built over several decades with the elimination of thousands of civil society, philanthropic and religious organizations, as well as the imposition of a structure of surveillance and control over citizens made up of state and para-state apparatuses Nicaragua», highlighted the report when referring to the closure and confiscation of assets of more than 3,500 NGOs.500 NGOs.
The United States announces support for journalists
The United States government announced that it has more than $3 million to fund investigative journalism projects and anti-corruption initiatives in Central America, including Nicaragua.
The aid, channeled through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), will serve to strengthen the «work of independent media and journalists to inform the public about corruption, while promoting government transparency, accountability accountability and respect for human rights,» an agency spokesperson told VOA.
The initiative seeks greater collaboration between independent media outlets and journalists from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, in addition to expanding «access to services for journalists to manage their safety» while working «in high-risk environments.»
Nicaraguan journalist receives permission to stay in the United States
Journalist Joselin Montes, who was facing an imminent deportation process from the United States, was released on Thursday, February 22, from the Georgia detention center, where she was, after a judge stopped the expulsion order and ruled in her favor.
Joselin emigrated to the United States last year and spent 10 months in detention, first in Florida and then in Georgia.
Osley Sallent, a lawyer who defended the journalist for free, explained that «after 10 months, half a dozen hearings and a trial where hundreds of pages of evidence and statements were presented (…) the prosecution informed me that they were not going to oppose for Joselin to be given a suspension of his deportation.
The 33-year-old journalist worked in several media outlets in Nicaragua and in 2018 she covered many of the protests against the regime, which made her politically persecuted.
2023: more repression and censorship in Nicaragua
The year 2023 closed in Nicaragua under an environment of greater repression, marked by new cases of attacks and threats against journalists and the arrest of at least 18 Catholic priests and seminarians, as part of the strategy of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to silence every critical voice in the country and restrict freedom of thought, expression and information.
Thus, the country begins the new year with at least 119 political prisoners, among them the reporter Víctor Ticay, who has been locked up in a cell at the Modelo prison north of Managua for nine months; academic Freddy Quezada, arrested at the end of November after publishing a criticism of the government on his social networks; and the Catholic bishops Rolando Álvarez and Isidoro Mora, the first sentenced to 26 years in prison and the second arrested last December and whose whereabouts are still unknown.
FLED and Voces del Sur: siege, threats and closure of community radio stations
A report presented on January 10, 2024 by the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FLED ) and Voces del Sur, documented at the end of 2023 a total of 33 assaults and attacks on journalists, 26 cases of abusive use of power state and 22 cases of use of stigmatizing speech.
«It is evident that the main pattern of violence documented in 2023 was that of assaults and attacks; this was manifested in most cases through siege tactics and police surveillance outside the journalists’ homes,» highlighted the report.
He indicated that banishments, confiscations, illegal detentions and harassment of the relatives of exiled journalists prevailed during the past year, which confirms that the independent press continues under attack and that Nicaragua «is becoming one of the most dangerous countries to exercise journalism» in the Central American region.
97.7% of violations of press freedom in 2023 occurred against journalists and 2.3% against media outlets, such as the closure and confiscation of community radio stations Yapti Tasba Bila Baikra and Yapti Tasba Bila Baikra , located on the Northern Caribbean Coast and which were owned by the Yatama indigenous party, outlawed the previous October. The State of Nicaragua and parastatal groups appear as the main aggressors in the documented cases.
The report warned that the figures could be significantly higher, but due to the increase in violence and threats against exiled, retired or retired journalists, the victims have chosen silence to protect their lives and that of their families.
PCIN: more than 240 journalists in exile
monitoring report was presented on January 9, 2024 by the trade union organization Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN), founded after the 2018 political crisis to bring together press professionals persecuted by the regime.
According to PCIN, 44 journalists were forced into exile in 2023, with which the number of journalists forced to leave the country in the last five years now exceeds 242. Arlen Pérez, director of PCIN monitoring, said that of the total number of exiled journalists 98 are women.
The organization documented 83 attacks against press freedom throughout last year. Among these attacks, the arrest of journalist Víctor Ticay stands out, detained in April 2023 for filming a religious procession and sentenced to 8 years in prison for alleged «cybercrimes.»
Persecution of religion
At least 18 Catholic priests and seminarians are in Nicaraguan prisons, after being arrested by police and parapolice forces in the last days of 2023, without the government confirming their arrest or providing any information about their whereabouts to date.
Several arrests were made with threats and violence, as in the case of several religious who were taken from their parishes or residences by armed police, without a court order or prior notice. One of the detained religious is the bishop of the diocese of Siuna (northeast), Monsignor Isidoro Mora, arrested on December 20, after having said in a homily that he was praying for the bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa (north), Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, deprived of liberty since August 2022 and sentenced to 26 years in prison.
The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Raza e Igualdad) launched a «high alert» to the international community «due to the unprecedented raid, arbitrary arrests and forced disappearances committed by the dictatorial regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo against members of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua».
«This year-end raid is just a sample of the terror that exists in Nicaragua and without a doubt gives a bad omen of what the year 2024 will be like for these people. The regime does not respect a single human right and religious freedom does not is the exception,» said Carlos Quesada, executive director of Race and Equality.
For her part, researcher Martha Patricia Molina assured that more than 200 priests and nuns have been banished or imprisoned by the dictatorship since the 2018 crisis, when the Ortega regime accused the Catholic Church of participating in a «failed coup d’état.» » against him.
Information update: On January 15, Nicaraguan authorities expelled 18 clerics and they were expelled to Rome.
Number of political prisoners rises to 119
The year 2023 also ended for Nicaragua with 119 people detained for political reasons, according to a report released in early January by the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners, whose data is endorsed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
The report, which includes 10 political prisoners detained before the April 2018 crisis, records 43 new arbitrary arrests between November 1 and December 31 just last year.
The report documents the beating that seven political prisoners received in the Modelo prison, where «they were isolated after trying to start a hunger strike and sing songs alluding to Nicaragua, to demand improvements in prison conditions and an end to acts of torture and ill-treatment. deals.»
According to the Mechanism, among those imprisoned there are 16 people over 60 years of age, who remain held in «inhuman conditions» and without any respect for their fundamental rights.
Among those detained are, in addition to journalist Víctor Ticay, academic Freddy Quezada, and bishops Álvarez and Mora, 10 priests who hold positions of authority in the Archdiocese of Managua and in parishes in the capital.
The Miss Universe case – the exile of a family
This January also saw the release and exile of Martín Argüello and Bernardo Argüello Celebertti, husband and son respectively of the former director of the Miss Nicaragua franchise, Karen Celebertti, whom the regime accused of a series of serious crimes against the State. , in an unprecedented official reaction to the no less surprising triumph of the young Nicaraguan Sheynnis Palacios in the Miss Universe pageant, which culminated in El Salvador on November 18, 2023.
The unexpected coronation of Palacios unleashed an explosion of joy in the streets of Nicaragua, where the blue and white flags (national emblem and symbol of the 2018 protests) flew again despite the official ban on demonstrations that has been in force since that year. The phenomenon unleashed the anger of the government, at a time when photos of the beautiful young woman also participating in those demonstrations of rebellion were spread online.
Days later, the government prevented Karen Celebertti and her daughter Luciana from returning to the country, and shortly afterward the police arrested her husband and son after raiding their home in the southwest of Managua. In a statement, the police alleged that the family was preparing «a plot» against the regime and accused its members of «treason to the country, conspiracy to disturb the peace and incite hatred and violence,» in addition to «organized crime, money laundering, financing of terrorism and financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.»
In mid-December Karen Celebertti announced from Mexico her retirement from the Miss Nicaragua franchise, which she had successfully directed for 23 years. On January 7, 2024, her husband and son were taken from prison and expelled to Mexico.