The newspaper
La Prensa
,
the oldest in Nicaragua, will not reach the stalls this Friday.
The Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo imposed a customs blockade on the paper necessary to print it.
"The paper is kidnapped," warned the digital edition of the only newspaper with national scope that remains in the Central American country.
The measure reinforces the information blackout caused by the repressive escalation of the Sandinista regime through the Prosecutor's Office, which persecutes journalists with the so-called Cybercrime Law and sends opponents who dare to make statements to independent media to jail. .
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This is not the first time that the Ortega-Murillo administration has imposed a customs embargo on the paper and ink of
La Prensa
, but it is the first time that its printed edition —as well as that of the popular daily
Hoy
,
from the same publishing house— stops circulating due to lack of material.
The previous embargo lasted more than 500 days, until February 6, 2020, when the regime released several tons of paper, ink and other supplies thanks to the mediation of the Vatican nuncio, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag.
"The paper has been seized because the authorities of the General Directorate of Customs (DGA) do not approve the exoneration request process carried out by La Prensa since last July 26," the newspaper reported. "According to the law, the authorities have a maximum of days to respond to this request, however, on this occasion, 18 days have passed since the beginning of the process." According to article 68 of the Political Constitution of Nicaragua, the media with a “social function” —such as La Prensa— are exempt from “all kinds of taxes”.
The process to import supplies was relatively normal until before 2018, when social protests against the Government broke out. The riots were neutralized with violence, as Human Rights organizations have denounced. The media became key to documenting the repression, and the government targeted the newsrooms. They confiscated the equipment of the channel
100% Noticias
and
Confidencial
; He
imposed a long customs blockade
on the two national newspapers,
La Prensa
and
El Nuevo Diario
. El
Nuevo Diario could
not resist the lack of raw materials and in September 2019, after 40 years of circulation, it closed permanently.
“The cost of paper and supplies (retained in 2018) amounted to 225, 352 dollars, plus the payment of the fiscal warehouses.
On that occasion the raw material was released (...) However, the 17 months of kidnapping caused great losses to the company, since it had to print on more expensive paper and was forced to sharply cut the scope of circulation, which considerably reduced sales ”, recalled
La Prensa.
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A worker prepares a roll of paper before putting the La Prensa newspaper into operation in Managua on February 7, 2020. OSWALDO RIVAS / Reuters
Since that episode, the newspaper's management has made smaller imports of inputs, in shorter periods of time, to be able to circumvent the DGA.
The Sandinista government, which considers the media “communication terrorists”, has now decided to torpedo the leading newspaper of Nicaraguan journalism in a questioned electoral context.
Informational blackout
The embargo on
La Prensa's
paper
is part of a repressive escalation that landed 32 opposition leaders, including seven presidential candidates;
the annulment of all opposition parties and the imposition of an election without competition or transparency.
At the same time, the Prosecutor's Office has charged dozens of journalists, whom it threatens with the Cybercrime Law.
The persecution has fueled a new wave of exiled reporters.
Most journalists have left Nicaragua irregularly to prevent the immigration and immigration authorities from seizing their passports, as happened to Julio López of the radio program
Onda Local
and other opponents who have tried to leave formally.
The political persecution also caused an unprecedented “information blackout” in the country: the main voices, sources of information consulted by reporters, have chosen to self-censor themselves, after electoral experts - given the context - have been arrested for expressing opinions in the media.
The clearest case was that of José Antonio Peraza, arrested hours after alerting on local television about the lack of guarantees in the November elections.
“The systematic and generalized persecution against the independent press has triggered that today in Nicaragua the news sources do not want to speak with the independent press for fear of facing a subsequent judicial process; the few information sources that express their opinion on issues of national interest do so under the condition of anonymity, which constitutes a serious setback in terms of public freedoms ”, warned in July 2021 the monitoring and follow-up of cases of violations of press freedom produced by the newspaper
La Prensa.
An example of what the
La Prensa
report says
was the legal cancellation of 24 NGOs, mainly medical organizations that, in the absence of state information on the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, were primary sources of information for journalists independent.
"It is not only an information blackout, because the information blackout would be limited to the media," says sociologist Elvira Cuadra.
“This includes both organizations and individuals.
Some arrests, especially the latest ones, have all these characteristics: After giving interviews and giving their opinion, people are detained.
Laws and articles that do not make sense are applied to them ”, he adds.
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