Nicaraguan independent journalism and the stubborn memory of the past

On Monday, March 1st, Nicaragua celebrated National Journalist Day, in commemoration of the more than one hundred years of journalistic activity in the country. But these days, in particular, it is ethically imperative to honor the work of independent Nicaraguan journalism.

As the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has already stated, journalism fulfills at least two main functions in a democratic society: to allow the circulation of diverse ideas and thus contribute to the free formation of public opinion; and also to subject public authorities and leaders to criticism and scrutiny. That is why any authoritarian political project is necessarily threatened by independent journalism.

This has sadly been a reality in Nicaragua, especially in the context of the grave situation the country has been facing since April 2018.

At the beginning of the protests of that year, testimonies were already received from journalists practicing in the media owned by the two large conglomerates that hold the ownership of most of them. These testimonies gave account of the instructions given by executives and directors of these media, fearful of the state's response.

At the beginning of the crisis, the authorities deployed direct censorship measures. Channel 12, one of the few independent television channels in the country, was eliminated from the cable television grid. At the same time, the signal of 100% Noticias was suspended for almost six days. The digital media outlet CONFIDENCIAL was blocked on the Internet during peak reading hours, just when it was broadcasting the list of 19 people presumably murdered by state agents. Around that same time, Radio Darío, in León, was set on fire with impunity, and in Bluefields, on the Atlantic Coast, Ángel Gahona, an independent journalist covering the protests, was shot in the head. To this day, it is unknown who committed the crime.

Later, the confiscation of the facilities where 100% Noticias operated — in the context of the criminalization of its owner and its chief of press, Miguel Mora and Lucía Pineda, beneficiaries of precautionary measures from the IACHR — showed that the exercise of journalism critical of the Government would continue to be severely punished.

The occupation of CONFIDENCIAL's facilities and the attempted criminalization of its director, Carlos Fernando Chamorro - who also received precautionary measures from the Commission - was an attack on one of the most accredited voices of Nicaraguan and Central American journalism, thus delivering a clear message, as was explicitly stated by a high state authority: the authorities would go, I open quotation marks, "all out", in this case, to attack the independent press.

The mechanisms of indirect censorship, such as the permanent siege and surveillance of journalists and media workers, which in some cases resulted in arrests and criminalization, also sought to silence the press and caused at least 90 of them to flee to other countries, many to continue reporting on Nicaragua through independent digital media. 

After a customs embargo that prevented their access to paper and ink during the first half of 2019, El Nuevo Diario and its associated media ceased to circulate in September of the same year, leaving La Prensa as the only independent printed newspaper of national scope in the country.

At the end of 2020, we learned of the intensification of tax objections as an excuse to indirectly censor independent media. Particularly, Channel 12 continues to be in a situation of having its assets put up for auction, putting  the only independent free-to-air television news media of national scope at serious risk of closure. 

Several laws were recently passed in Nicaragua, the content of which threatens to repress and inhibit public freedoms. This threat also looms over the press, which has been almost explicitly singled out in Article 30 of the Special Law on Cybercrimes, when it criminalizes the propagation of false news through information and communication technologies. In the context of the documented lack of judicial independence that affects the country, it constitutes an announcement of criminalization of journalists who expose critical views of the official narrative.

There are already concrete previous examples of this advance announcement of criminalization in the convictions of Kalúa Salazar, from La Consteñísima Radio, and David Quintana, from Boletín Ecológico, for slander in the exercise of their profession, when they subjected authorities to criticism and public scrutiny.

The frontal attacks on the press continue to this day. In particular, we have learned of at least two raids in January, without any court order and without even an explanation of the motives, on the home of journalist Aníbal Toruño, a beneficiary of precautionary measures from the Commission. Last weekend, several journalists covering a political event in Nicaragua were intimidated, threatened, searched and raided by the police. One journalist even reported sexual touching by a police officer.

In short, continuing to do independent journalism in Nicaragua is an act of courage and even heroism. Because the violence deployed by the State against the press is physical, legal and symbolic, as the Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the IACHR said this weekend in an interview with Confidencial.

But the exercise of independent journalism is not only an act of courage, it is also an act of justice. The independent press, recording and disseminating facts and diverse opinions, in the context of the serious deterioration of democratic institutions occurring in the country, in the midst of the official attempt to perpetuate impunity, in the midst of the intensification of repression, is an irreplaceable input in the monumental work of documentation that the people of Nicaragua, its civil society, is developing. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, through its Special Follow-up Mechanism (MESENI) and in the exercise of its conventional mandate, is also involved in this process.

Therefore, Nicaraguan independent journalism is also making history, in the most intense sense of the word, in that which after so many tears in our continent, international law calls memory, truth and justice. That history that will not leave any of the victims unnamed, that history that will not leave any claim for justice silenced.

Thus, independent journalism builds memory, the stubborn memory that, like journalists and media workers in Nicaragua, resists censorship, silence and overcomes attacks. This memory is the basis for the democratization and justice that we all desire and that, sooner rather than later, will come to our beloved Nicaragua. 

* Vice-Chairwoman of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Rapporteur for Nicaragua

This article been translated by Ana María Sampson, a Communication Science student at the University of Amsterdam and member of our staff*