Nicaragua: La Prensa editor issues warning about Ortega's regime

Journalists appear for alleged money laundering 3:10

(CNN Spanish) -

The editor of the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, Fabián Medina, denounced that the regime of President Daniel Ortega tries to make the practice of journalism a crime in the country, after leaving an interview in the Prosecutor's Office to which he was summoned this Thursday.

"The prosecutor who interviewed me insisted a lot on what I was doing, the sources, who they were, that if I knew that for example an opinion that I gave in my column was a crime because I am not proving it," Medina told the media after the audience.

"What I see is that there is an attempt to turn journalism, the exercise of journalism, into a crime by defining what lies are," added the also writer of the newspaper, which is one of the few media not controlled by the Ortega government.

• These are the presidential candidates and opposition leaders detained in Nicaragua

According to Medina, the Prosecutor's Office did not inform him of the reason why he should appear for the interview.

CNN contacted the prosecution on Thursday for comment, but has not received a response so far.

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What is being accused of Cristiana Chamorro in Nicaragua?

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At the end of May, the Nicaraguan Public Ministry summoned several journalists to testify about an investigation initiated by the Ministry of the Interior against the opposition presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro Barrios, according to some of the persons mentioned and human rights organizations through of their social networks.

At the time, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) strongly condemned the summons through its social networks, which it considered "absurd and incriminating" in the framework of the "money laundering" case that, according to the agency, it was "manufactured by the regime" against Cristiana Chamorro.

For Cenidh, "this is part of a fierce persecution against independent journalism, an outrage against the civil and political rights of Nicaraguans."

Almagro affirms that Nicaragua is experiencing a dictatorship 1:08

Medina's complaint also comes after a week in which at least seven opposition leaders, including four presidential candidates - including Chamorro - have been detained by the authorities, arrests that have been criticized nationally and internationally.

With information from Mario Medrano in Managua

Daniel Ortega