Q24N (EFE) The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) condemned President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo of Nicaragua for stripping more journalists of their nationality and calling them “traitors to the homeland.”
In a statement, the regional organization, which is based in Miami, Florida (USA), condemned the order to strip nationality and expropriate property issued by Ortega this week.
Among the journalists affected last Wednesday are Carlos Fernando Chamorro, winner of the 38th Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards and director of Confidencial and Esta Semana, as well as Wilfredo Miranda, collaborator in Nicaragua for the Spanish newspaper El País and winner of the Ibero-American Journalism Award King of Spain 2018.
The list also includes Lucía Pineda, 100% Noticias; Luis Galeano, Café con Voz; Jennifer Ortiz, Nicaragua Investiga; Patricia Orozco, Onda Local; Manuel Díaz, Bacanal Nica; Álvaro Navarro, Artículo 66; David Quintana, Boletín Ecológico; Aníbal Toruño, Radio Darío; Santiago Aburto, BTN Noticias; Jimmy Guevara, Criterios; Sofía Montenegro, Silvia Nadide Gutiérrez and Camilo de Castro Belli, according to the organization Journalists and Independent Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN, in Spanish).
Last Friday, journalists Miguel Mendoza, Miguel Mora, Manuel Antonio Obando, Wilberto Artola, Sergio Cárdenas, Cristiana Chamorro, and Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, members of the board of La Prensa, and Juan Lorenzo Holmann, general manager of that newspaper and regional vice-president for Nicaragua of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, were also affected by the same measure.
They were part of a 222 group who arrived on a charter flight to Washington, DC.
The movement of Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN), a union of communicators, made the complaint last Thursday.
“We condemn these measures. The expropriation of journalistic assets and the stripping of the nationality of journalists are unacceptable, but not surprising for this regime that continues to occupy one of the last positions in our Chapultepec index,” said IAPA President Michael Greenspon.
Global Director of Printing Licensing and Innovation at The New York Times, Greenspon referred to the index prepared annually by the organization to classify countries based on their actions that affect freedom of expression and the press.
For his part, Carlos Jornet, president of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, made reference to the warnings that this organization has been making since 2018 about “the intentions of the regime when it approved a battery of laws as a strategy to muzzle the freedom of the press and expression and deepen its totalitarianism.
Since then, he adds, “the IAPA has been denouncing the Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents, the Special Law on Cybercrimes and the Law for the Defense of People’s Rights to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination as unconstitutional and ‘violating’ international law.” for Peace”.
IAPA continues to insist before the international community that the European Union, the United States, and other democratic countries of Latin America condemn the regime and take appropriate measures to neutralize the attacks on human rights and individual and social liberties of all Nicaraguans.
IAPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and expression in the Americas. It comprises more than 1,300 publications from the western hemisphere.
