Nicaragua’s government wants to turn newspaper headquarters into regime propaganda machine

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) said this Monday that it was concerned about “the new misuse, illegal and unconstitutional that the regime of Daniel Ortega, in Nicaragua”, will make of the facilities of the newspaper La Prensa, taken over by the dictatorship in August 2021 and since then published digitally outside the country.

The organization, based in Miami (United States), pointed out that the Ortega regime wants to use the newspaper’s presses to open “an official means of communication that publishes government propaganda.”

“The government is now hiring personnel who used to work for the company, due to their specialized knowledge in the use of the newspaper’s presses and other production equipment and the commercial printing plant,” the IAPA added in a statement.

“It is alarming that, in addition to having illegitimately confiscated and dispossessed the assets of a private company, the regime now has the nerve to use the assets of the media for propaganda purposes,” said the president of the institution, Michael Greenspon.

“We are not surprised by the nature of a regime that imprisons journalists for trumped-up crimes, forces journalists into exile and seizes property and real estate for their benefit,” added The New York Times’ global director of licensing and innovation.

“This is a new attempt to use the propaganda and lies machine to continue creating its own narrative to deceive the people,” said the president of the IAPA’s Freedom of the Press and Information Commission, Carlos Jornet.

The organization reiterated today that Juan Lorenzo Holmann, general manager of La Prensa, and journalists Miguel Mora and Miguel Mendoza, sentenced to prison terms, should be freed.

Likewise, it demanded that the Nicaraguan regime annul the sentences of Cristiana Chamorro and Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, members of the board of La Prensa, and journalist Jaime Arellano, sentenced to eight, nine and 13 years in prison, respectively.

Likewise, as it does with La Prensa, the IAPA reiterated the return of Confidencial and 100% Noticias, both confiscated in 2018 and despite Article 14 of the Constitution of Nicaragua prohibiting the confiscation of assets and properties.

The IAPA recalls that the valuation of the usurped assets of La Prensa, in whose headquarters the dictator Ortega installed a cultural and polytechnic center, amounts to US$20 million.

The offices of Confidencial and 100% Noticias were also converted into a maternity home and a care center for drug addicts, respectively.

The IAPA’s latest Chapultepec Index shows Nicaragua bottom out of 22 countries in terms of press freedom.

The Chapultepec Index is an annual barometer that measures institutional actions that affect freedom of the press and expression in 22 countries across the Americas.

With information from Gazeta do Povo