Nicaragua harassment of media and journalists increases, six months before elections

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – An investigation for alleged money laundering against opposition presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro Barrios has increased the pressure against media and journalists critical of President Daniel Ortega, as they were summoned before the Public Prosecutor’s Office in a case that they attribute “as a plan to silence” their voices.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office investigates Chamorro Barrios, daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1997), who defeated Ortega in the 1990 elections, received on Tuesday, a group of journalists and media owners, who are linked to the case.

The correspondent of the Univisión network in Managua, María Lilly Delgado, with 28 years of professional career, said upon leaving the appointment, in which she refrained from testifying because she was prevented from being assisted by a lawyer, that the investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office “is within a plan to silence and to intimidate any critical voice that denounces the systematic crisis of human rights violations” that Nicaragua has been experiencing since April 2018, when anti-government demonstrations broke out.

“This is nothing more than an onslaught mainly against freedom of the press and freedom of expression,” said, for his part, Guillermo Medrano, a former collaborator of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, another of those cited.

“DISMANTLE PROPAGANDA APPARATUS”

Sandinista ideologist William Grigsby pointed out last Friday in his radio program Sin Fronteras that “what the revolution is doing is dismantling the propagandistic and organizational apparatus of the United States to torpedo the elections” in Nicaragua, according to the portal Divergentes.

He added that the “idea is to hit the Chamorro’s (media) apparatus to make it unusable” given the November 7 elections. Ortega, in power since 2007, seeks another reelection.

Journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, winner of the 38th Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards and head of a group of media critical of the government, said that the Nicaraguan press is the victim of persecution by what he called “the worst dictatorship in our history”, in reference to Ortega’s Executive.

Meanwhile, the movement Journalists and Independent Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN) warned about an attempt by the Government to “criminalize independent journalism” and called on the chief executive “to stop the strategy of involving journalists in political struggles.”

NEW STAGE OF “CRIMINALIZATION” AGAINST THE MEDIA

For constitutional and opposition lawyer María Asunción Moreno, the case against Chamorro Barrios’ NGO “is a new stage of criminalization, this time and for now, against the media.”

“The dictatorship does not want independent media covering the elections” of next November, said Moreno, who said that the president “is not only trying to put into operation a placating machine against the media and journalists but also against all Nicaraguans who are to be deprived of access to information in the upcoming electoral process.”

The Prosecutor’s Office, headed by former police officer Ana Julia Guido, at the request of the Ministry of the Interior, is investigating the opposition presidential candidate in her capacity as executive director and representative of the NGO Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, which closed last February, after charges of money laundering, goods, and assets to the detriment of the Nicaraguan State and society.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, that NGO dedicated to the protection and promotion of freedom of the press and expression “seriously failed to comply with its obligations before the Regulatory Body, and from the analysis of the Financial Statements, period 2015-2019, clear indications of money laundering were obtained,” for which reason “the Public Ministry has been informed to (open) the corresponding investigation.”

JOURNALIST MENTIONS USAID

The Prosecutor’s Office has not yet said whether or not it will prosecute the case for which five journalists have also been called to testify, among them the former presidential candidate and owner of the popular radio station Radio Corporación, Fabio Gadea Mantilla, 89, and journalist Verónica Chávez, of the channel 100% Noticias, whose building was confiscated by the Government and taken off the television grid.

The Prosecutor’s Office has not offered details about the investigation nor corroborated if it has found “clear indications of money laundering”, as determined by the Ministry of the Interior.

However, journalist José Miguel Fonseca, press chief of the pro-government local television Channel 4, has published on his social networks copies of documents, without being confirmed or denied by the authorities, which indicate that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) granted funds to the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, which in turn supported Nicaraguan media with projects.

Chamorro Barrios, who is the opposition figure with the highest probability of winning the elections over the Sandinistas, according to a CID Gallup poll, affirmed that the government authorized the use of funds “from a legitimate government” with which the NGO was operating, for which she called the investigation a “macabre” process.