Caribbean & Central America - October 2021

In recent weeks Nicaragua’s attorney general’s office has issued arrest orders for one of the country’s most prominent writers, Sergio Ramírez, and leading journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the director of opposition media outlet Confidencial, (both in exile) on what are widely considered trumped-up charges. The arrest orders come among other signs that, as a local rights group recently warned, independent journalism is under “ferocious attack” by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government led by President Daniel Ortega ahead of the November general elections.

Once a close Ortega ally, serving as his vice president (1985-1990) during Ortega’s first presidency, Ramírez split from the FSLN in 1995 along with other Sandinista dissidents, amid concerns about Ortega’s perceived authoritarianism. The recipient of various international prizes including the Premio Cervantes, the most prestigious literary award in the Spanish-speaking world, Ramírez has remained a prominent Ortega critic ever since. On 8 September the attorney general’s office accused him of acts that “foment and incite hatred and violence”. It also accused him of having received, through his Fundación Luisa Mercado, a non-profit which promotes cultural and educational development, funds from local press freedom NGO Fundación Violeta Barrios Chamorro (FVBC), whose former director Cristiana Chamorro has been accused of money laundering. The daughter of former president Violeta Chamorro (1990-1997), Cristiana Chamorro, a leading presidential contender, was the first opposition figure detained in the latest crackdown which began in late May [SSR-21-07]. Her brother Carlos Fernando Chamorro, who left the country in June after his offices were raided the previous month, was also accused on 24 August of charges including money laundering.

As well as targeting individuals, on 13 August authorities raided the Managua office of La Prensa, a leading Ortega critic and the country’s oldest and largest newspaper. Dating back nearly 100 years to 1926, La Prensa’s former editor was Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the father of Carlos and Cristiana, whose murder in 1978 sparked the unrest which ultimately brought about the demise of the Somoza dictatorship (1936-1979). Following the raid, La Prensa publisher Juan Lorenzo Holmann was arrested for alleged customs fraud and money laundering. Condemned by the US State Department and press watchdogs like the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), the raid occurred the day after La Prensa’s board of directors announced that they were pausing the paper’s print edition due to the customs authorities repeatedly withholding imported supplies, including newsprint. In September 2019, La Prensa reported that customs authorities had been withholding imported newsprint and ink supplies, although it said that these were lifted in February 2020, allowing the publication to continue printing.

The escalating crackdown comes amid ongoing warnings from press watchdogs and human rights groups that freedom of expression is under serious threat in Nicaragua. On 9 September local human rights group Colectivo de Derechos Humanos Nicaragua Nunca Más released a report which found that since April 2018, at least 30 journalists and media workers had suffered “persecution and criminalisation as a reprisal for their work”. This includes one assassination; ten arrests; and five forced to face justice “arbitrarily tried for defamation with the clear objective of silencing investigative journalism”. It identified eight “types and levels of repression” which include criminalisation and judicialisation; attacks on physical and psychological integrity; patrimonial damage; obstacles to carrying out journalism; fiscal and customs persecution; and guarantees of impunity for aggressors.

• IAHCR-OHCHR warning

On 18 August the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and its Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (RELE) and the Central America regional office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a joint statement “energetically condemning repeated acts of persecution carried out by the Nicaraguan authorities against the media, journalists and press workers in the context of the general elections.” According to the press release in the two months prior, the institutions had documented at least 12 journalists forced into exile for fear of reprisals.