Journalists Flee Nicaragua as Ortega’s Repression Escalates

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At least 278 journalists have been forced to leave Nicaragua over the past six years to escape persecution by Daniel Ortega’s government, according to a report released this Monday by the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FLED).

“The number of exiled journalists is approximately 278, including reporters, photographers, and other media workers,” said the NGO in a quarterly report on press freedom in the Central American country. The previous count was 263, meaning 15 journalists went into exile between July and September, according to FLED, which operates from Costa Rica.

“The intensification of state repression has forced several journalists into exile and pushed others to quit the profession as a survival measure,” the report states. It also criticizes legal reforms passed by Managua to silence critical voices. The NGO, which is part of the regional press defense network Voces del Sur, noted that July, the anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution’s victory, “marked a particularly difficult period for journalists in Nicaragua.”

It added that during that month, journalists “faced an alarming increase in harassment, raids, and thefts of technological equipment,” and since then, journalist Fabiola Tercero has been “in a state of forced disappearance.” “No government entity has provided information on her whereabouts, and she was not among the 135 Nicaraguans released from prison and exiled to Guatemala on September 5,” FLED stated.

On September 6, a Guatemalan press collective claimed that Tercero was among the 135, but later deleted the statement from its social media. FLED indicated that “stigmatizing rhetoric has not ceased,” as Ortega’s government and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, “continue using their officials […] to attack journalists and […] threaten them with the enforcement of repressive laws.”

The NGO criticized the reform of the cybercrime law, which increased penalties and paved the way for convicting individuals over social media posts. Repression has escalated in Nicaragua since the 2018 protests, which left more than 300 dead in three months, according to the UN.

Ortega, a former guerrilla leader who governed in the 1980s after the revolution’s victory and returned to power in 2007, claims that the 2018 protests were an attempted coup sponsored by Washington.

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