The Nicaraguan Press in the Eye of the Hurricane

The repression against the press is occurring in the midst of a sociopolitical crisis that has resulted in between 552 and 558 “political prisoners” after demonstrations against Ortega. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 20 December 2018 — It wasn’t enough for them to extinguish social protests with blood and fire, nor to imprison hundreds of young people for exercising their right to protest. Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo needed to go further.

In December of this year, the Nicaraguan police assaulted the offices of the Confidential newspaper and of the television programs Esta Semana (This Week) and Esta Noche (Tonight), in an attempt to silence the chroniclers in a country where freedom of expression has been in serious danger for years.

Why this blow against the media? What is the point of lashing out against journalists and earning the unanimous rejection of the profession on an international level? In part, because there is nothing more uncomfortable for an authoritarian regime than the conscientious reporting of its excesses and timely information about its outrages against the population.

For tyrants, the reporter is public enemy number one in that he or she has the ability to put in writing those details of reality that the Government wants to sweep under the carpet and hide from the public eye. The reporter is the uncomfortable witness, willing to disseminate what some want never to be known.

Now, with this turn of the screw, Ortega has entered a new phase of repression. In this stage, his apparatus of control focuses on dismantling any vestige of independence that may remain in civil society.

This is why non-governmental organizations, civic groups and newspapers are at the center of his onslaught. Everything that can be useful to citizens to unite their efforts and keep abreast of what is happening will be eliminated or, at the very least, this is what the former guerrilla turned tyrant will attempt.

That is why the solidarity of other media and information professionals everywhere in the world, and especially in Latin America, is so important. To level the newsroom and take away the working tools of a newspaper is like gagging thousands of people in a single second, like closing hundreds of throats so they can not express themselves. In the pages of all the newspapers and on the broadcasts of all the television stations of this region of the world, we should mourn our Nicaraguan colleagues this week and also make felt our indignation about the dangerous step Ortega has taken.

But, above all, in every digital medium, printed newspaper, magazine or television channel we must remember that in the imperfect Latin American democracies – and even in the countries in this part of the world still under authoritarianism – the press has been an important pillar to give a voice to the people and narrate the excesses of the authorities. The fragile republics born after the wars of independence and the freedoms that were restored after the military dictatorships would have been much more ephemeral without the work of the professionals of the press.

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Note: This column was originally published in the Latin American edition of the Deutsche Welle chain.

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