Press Siege: Central America Tells Debate on Freedom of Expression and Threats of Authoritarianism in the Region

The literary festival Centroamérica Cuenta celebrates its tenth anniversary since Wednesday in the Dominican Republic as a space for the projection of Ibero-American letters and reflection on some of the challenges of contemporary societies: journalism, freedom of expression, populism or climate change. The event, promoted by the Nicaraguan writer and Cervantes Prize winner Sergio Ramírez and today converted into itinerant by the persecution of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, hosts this Friday a conversation between some of the most prominent journalists in the region to delve into the role of the press, which has not stopped suffering the siege of authoritarian governments

The latest episode was, just this week, the closure of elPeriódico de Guatemala after nearly three decades of investigating government corruption. Recently, El Faro, El Salvador's digital newspaper and media of reference throughout Latin America, had to move its administrative operations to Costa Rica to avoid the harassment of Nayib Bukele. But nothing is comparable to the persecution undertaken by the Sandinista apparatus against Nicaraguan reporters, forcing almost all of them into exile.

EL PAÍS broadcasts this Thursday, in collaboration with the festival and within the program Las cuentas de Centroamérica, a debate that will address these and other urgencies of journalism in Latin America. Nicaraguan Carlos Fernando Chamorro, founder of El Confidencial, chronicler Alma Guillermoprieto, Dominican communicator Persio Maldonado and Guatemalan Juan Luis Font talk with Javier Lafuente, deputy director of EL PAÍS América, in an event presented by former Costa Rican President Guillermo Solís.