IAPA denounced that the Nicaraguan regime kidnapped journalists, opposition candidates and social leaders

The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) has gathered raw testimonies about the repressive escalation that has intensified in recent weeks the regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice-president, Rosario Murillo, against the Nicaraguan press and opposition leaders ahead of the November 7 presidential elections.

The organization presented the preliminary report on Nicaragua on Tuesday to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Office of the Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. Carlos jornet, chairman of the IAPA Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, released the results of the report during a video conference also attended by the chairman of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR ). Antonia Urrejola; the special rapporteur for freedom of expression of the commission dependent on the OAS, Pedro Vaca Villarreal; and by the President and Executive Director of IAPA, Jorge Canahuati Yes Ricardo trotti, respectively.

Due to the health restrictions and limitations imposed on entering Nicaragua, the interviews of the mission took place virtually and under the commitment of absolute confidentiality, given the climate of anxiety that reigns in the country “After the succession of raids, searches, threats, illegal persecutions, military espionage and arbitrary arrests”.

The IAPA delegation met with journalists, media officials, opposition leaders, academics, business people and representatives of civil society and the Catholic Church. “Several of those interviewed repeated a sentence which conclusively sums up the tragedy of the moment: ‘Nicaragua is a country without law and without justice'”, said Jornet, also director of the Argentinian newspaper The voice from within, who led the talks with Trotti.

The executive director of the entity recalled that during the two previous IAPA missions to Nicaragua carried out in 2018 after the street demonstrations against the Sandinista dictatorship, they had been able to meet political, social, religious and media representatives: “This shows the accelerated deterioration of the institutional situation since then.”

“We also see a serious degradation of human rights (…) The government disregards legality, ignores and oversteps the principles of due process and the presumption of innocence and destroys other basic human rights, such as freedoms of speech, of the press, of movement and of meeting “, added Jornet.

The IAPA warned that the holding of free and fair elections “This will only be possible if an environment for the full exercise of freedoms of expression, press and assembly, and guarantees for due process is restored”. “It is also essential that the government grant wide facilities for the information work of the national and foreign media during the electoral campaign, on election day and subsequent monitoring,” he added.

Jornet argued that Ortega’s “autocratic and uncontrolled regime” mounted an “electoral simulation” ahead of the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for November.

In the past two months, the Ortega regime intensified the persecution, arresting 21 people, including five opposition candidates and some journalists. Some of these arrests were carried out at night, with violence, and without displaying a warrant. “Even if there are people ready to lead the way to the houses, they break the doors and windows and enter with assault rifles,” a witness told the IAPA mission.

The goal is clear: spreading terror. For this, the regime calls on para-police and paramilitary groups, often hooded, which are responsible for committing excesses in houses already searched. They also put pressure on family members and those close to the detainees or those who had to go into exile.

“People are arrested without being informed of the causes, the police issue statements declaring that they have broken the law, which violates the presumption of innocence, and It was only later that a judge learned of the case and allegedly supported the operationOne of the interviewees said.

“First they are arrested, then the cause is armed. Police chiefs are making unfounded accusations of money laundering, treason or hate crimes, ”Jornet said during the presentation of the report.

The chairman of the IAPA Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information noted that while it is not for the agency to prove anyone’s innocence, “it is up to for the state to endorse such accusations with much more than mere declarations and diatribes “: justice must guarantee the right of defense”. In this direction, considered “illegal and clearly a violation of human rights” that detainees remain in detention for 90 days “incommunicado, without legal assistance”.

Jornet also denounced that Nicaraguan journalists quoted and asked about how they get information, how they process it and how they disseminate it: “This reveals that he seeks to generate self-censorship; what is sought is to silence any questioning of the concentrated power of the reigning marriage ”.

“The barrier to free journalism is closing day by day. The exodus of media personnel and managers is converging for this; difficulties in accessing essential supplies; pressure on advertisers; police checkpoints in front of newsrooms or journalists’ homes; stigma and threats of self-censorship; less social media activity for fear of persecution; lack of access to public information; concentration of the media in the hands of the state or the reigning family and the growing demand for sources not to be consulted or at least not mentioned “, he detailed.

As part of the persecution against the independent press, he recalled that on May 20 the offices of the magazine were raided. Confidential and facilities where television programs have been recorded This week Yes Tonight, directed by Carlos Fernando Chamorro: “Journalists who reported on the operation were repressed or detained and equipment was seized.”

The Argentine journalist considered “symptomatic Yes disturbing“That this repressive advance take place a few months before the elections.

In this context of persecution, repression and censorship, the IAPA announced that in its report “Will urge international organizations, organizations that work for the application of human rights and institutions that defend freedom of expression and of the press, to join forces to demand an immediate end to the repression, of all those detained for political reasons and the full re-establishment of democratic institutions ”.

Jornet indicated that the IAPA makes the report available to the IACHR “To broadcast what is happening in Nicaragua“:” We will also appreciate that our concern about the attacks on the press is brought to the plenary session of the Commission so that the issue can be added to the debate on actions that make it possible to put an end to the repression and the autocratic drift in the Nicaragua.

Jorge Canahuati, President of IAPA, said Nicaragua and the region entered “On a very dark night in terms of freedom of expression and human rights.

Urrejola, for his part warned that in the Central American country the public authorities “do not allow the examination or the criticism” or the “free circulation of ideas and various opinions”, we are thus confronted with a “Authoritarian government targets independent journalists”. “We have witnessed over the past four years the confiscation of (media) facilities and the persecution and criminalization” of journalists, with laws “designed to obstruct civil liberties.”

For this reason, the President of the IACHR declared that in Nicaragua “The ongoing repression and harassment of dissent has not ceased“And the regime maintains all the”repressive mechanisms to silence demonstrations in the streets”.

“When in a country there is no law, there is no justice and there is no freedom of expression, as it is clear from the mission we are carrying out in Nicaragua, there is no there are no minimum conditions for democratic life. Yes if there is no democracy, the one who claims to be the representative of the people is nothing more than an autocrat, a tyrant who seeks to stay in power to profit from it “, he concluded.

The video conference on the IAPA report:

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