New coup d’etat of the Ortega dictatorship in Nicaragua: La Prensa ceases to circulate due to a refusal of supply

The newspaper Press of Nicaragua, criticism of the dictatorship of Daniel ortega, announced Thursday that it would stop circulating because customs authorities blocked the importation of paper. “Once again, the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has retained our role. As long as they do not release our supplies we will not be able to circulate in print edition», Denounced the almost century-old newspaper on the front page of its latest issue.

He said that in the meantime he would continue to post on his website and on social media, “give news and denounce the regime’s abuses against democracy”. The paper is in the country but is retained by the regime’s customs.

The measure also affects the newspaper Today, a popular publication which is printed on the same newspaper and which also did not circulate this morning. This is the third time Press stop circulating because of paper and ink jams at customs. Further detentions took place in 2018 after social protests against Ortega, which accused the independent press of supporting what he called a “failed coup”.

Between 2018 and 2019, the newspaper ceased circulation for 500 days. The withholding of supplies caused huge economic losses and forced the dismissal of journalists and administrative staff, their leaders reported. Founded in 1926, Press is the only printed newspaper circulating in Nicaragua after the morning The new daily, also critical of the government, closed permanently due to an economic crisis in 2019.

Nicaragua will have elections on November 7 in which Ortega and his wife, the vice-president Rosario Murillo, will seek re-election to their posts after jailing the top seven opposition presidential candidates.

Would be the Ortega’s fifth five-year term since 1985 (the fourth in a row since 2007) and the second in Murillo as vice president.

The media editor

The Nicaraguan newspaper informed its audience on its website of what happened to Thursday’s edition.

The newspaper LA PRENSA could not be printed entirely on paper, today August 12, 2021. We had to reduce it to 8 pages, because the Directorate General of Customs (DGA) does not arbitrarily authorize the delivery of paper which is stored in the tax warehouse.

For this very reason Hoy log could not be printed, which belongs to Grupo Editorial LA PRENSA SA We apologize to the readers of both newspapers for this inconvenience, appealing to their understanding that it is not our fault, but that of the government.

This is not the first time that Daniel Ortega’s regime has caused us this difficulty, which also affects the readers and advertisers of LA PRENSA and the newspaper Hoy. Since Ortega took over in January 2007, we have encountered multiple difficulties, including retention and delays in the delivery of embedded paper.

Between 2018 and 2020, paper and other supplies essential for printing LA PRENSA were kept for 75 weeks. The regime released them only until the Apostolic Nuncio to Nicaragua, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, generously acted on the higher authority of the government. In this year 2021, the role was again retained, for several weeks, until its release on June 10. But now we are left with the same problem which is actually a form of press censorship.

Nothing justifies maintaining the role of LA PRENSA. Article 68 of the Nicaraguan Constitution establishes that the import of paper will be exempt from “all kinds of municipal, regional and fiscal taxes”. The problem is, as explained last June by the secretary of the LA PRENSA board of directors, Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro, that Once the paper arrives by boat in Nicaragua, “it is not published in a timely manner as required by law.” When the paper arrives at the port, it is transferred to the tax warehouse and the exemption request is made, which by law must be approved quickly, overnight, or at the latest within 10 working days. “But all we have seen,” Juan Lorenzo Holmann said on the occasion, “what has happened to us lately, (is that) we are spending more than the ten days required by law.” This is the cause of the lack of paper that LA PRENSA suffers from today and suffered in the past.

However, that is not why LA PRENSA will stop reaching its readers with the quality, truthful and responsible information that sets it apart. It will continue to be published in its online edition, which, moreover, meets the highest quality standards of international digital journalism. Information cannot be hidden, it is impossible to hide the truth. In addition, people, organizations, businesses, society in general need to be informed, but not in any way, but with the verified and contrasting information offered by serious journalism such as LA PRENSA.

Nicaraguans have the right to think and inform themselves freely, to make their own decisions on the basis of qualified information.

We denounce to the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), to organizations that defend freedom of information and expression, and to the entire international democratic community, this violation of freedom of information and censorship of the press as we live in Nicaragua. And we appeal to your solidarity.

We call on Democratic and Goodwill Nicaraguans to support LA PRENSA, which suffers from this clever form of censorship, by subscribing to its digital edition. And we encourage businesses to support us by advertising more in this newspaper.

Freedom of the press and truthful information are the oxygen of freedom and democracy. Without a free and quality press, society cannot breathe, like Alvarito Conrado, the legendary child hero and democratic martyr of Nicaragua.

(With information from the AP and the media) .-

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