Q24N (EFE) Nicaragua’s newspaper, La Prensa, is celebrating a century of existence, though it does so with the majority of its staff operating from exile and its headquarters confiscated by the government. As the outlet emphasized, it remains resilient and “in the service of freedom.”
“Today at La Prensa we celebrate a century of history. We are not in the print edition where we began, nor in the building that sheltered us for decades, but we are where it matters most: in the search for truth and in the heart of every Nicaraguan,” the newspaper wrote in its Monday edition.
The paper noted that this March 2 marks 100 years of “resilience” and “service to freedom,” because “each front page” is not just a news story, but “a battle.”
In a written statement, general manager and former political prisoner Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro said that “ink may run out, paper may be seized, and the printing press may be silenced; but freedom, when it is so deeply rooted in the heart of a nation, will always be printed again.”
“Today we turn 100 years old, and we will remain here! Steadfast, until God — not man — decides otherwise, confident that Nicaragua will soon be a Republic again,” he added.
Holmann Chamorro acknowledged that “these 100 years we celebrate today have not been easy,” and that for a newspaper, “they have been even harder.”
The seizure of La Prensa’s facilities
Holmann Chamorro noted, however, that “none of them defeated us; on the contrary, we have always emerged even stronger,” and that even “those who did everything to silence us are no longer here, and we remain.”
La Prensa’s historic building, located in an industrial area in northern Managua, was formally expropriated by the Nicaraguan dictatorship in August 2022, after having been occupied for a year by the National Police. Authorities alleged that the outlet was being used to commit crimes of “customs fraud and money and asset laundering.”
The Sandinista government, through the Office of the Attorney General, transferred the deed to the building that housed the newspaper to the National Technological Institute.
For his part, La Prensa’s general manager was sentenced on March 31, 2022, to nine years in prison for the alleged crime of “money laundering.”
He was released and sent to the United States on February 9, 2023. The following day, Nicaraguan authorities stripped him of his nationality.