The IAPA expressed its “relief” for the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua and condemned the persecution that is still taking place in the country

The IAPA expressed its “relief” for the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua and condemned the persecution that is still taking place in the country

The Inter-American Press Association (SIP) expressed its relief to learn that 222 political prisoners in Nicaragua -most of them opponents and journalists- had been released this Thursday. Although this large group of dissidents was exiled from the country and sent to the United States, far from the reach of the Daniel Ortega regime, the agency condemned that a “sick persecution” still takes place in the country against those who do not follow the official “dictations” .

“Although we are encouraged by the release of the prisoners, we repudiate that the regime has deported them from the country and that they are declared traitors for exercising their right to freedom of expression and dissenting from the ruling party,” said Carlos Jornet, president of the Commission on Freedom of the Press and Information of the IAPA and journalistic director of the newspaper La Voz del Interior of Córdoba, Argentina.

Carlos Jornet condemned that a “sick persecution” still takes place in Nicaragua against those who do not follow the official “dictates” (EFE)

Although the regime had originally ordered the release of 224 people, in the end only 222 boarded the plane from the United States, among them Juan Lorenzo Holmann, general manager of La Prensa and regional vice president of the IAPA; as well as the members of the newspaper’s board of directors, Cristiana Chamorro and Pedro Joaquín Chamorro; and the journalists Miguel Mora, Miguel Mendoza and Jaime Arellano.

Representing independent journalism in Nicaragua and the courageous work carried out by these professionals there, Hollman received the “SIP Grand Prize for Press Freedom” in 2021, as did Mora, in 2018.

For his part, Jornet warned of Ortega’s repressive practices since, as he declared, “while we celebrate the liberations, we consider it an aberration that a few hours before two La Prensa drivers were sentenced to 10 years in prison. This is another example of the unhealthy persecution of the dictatorial government against journalists and media workers”.

Journalists working in dictatorial countries face persecution, self-exile or exile (REUTERS)

In this sense, he warned of the three most frequent scenarios that await those who practice this profession in dictatorial countries, such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. “Suffering persecution, self-exiling or exile are the three options faced today by journalists, media directors and social leaders who do not submit to the dictates of the regime,” he explained.

“The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship is silencing all internal questioning, imposing a single thought to perpetuate itself in power,” he concluded.

The Nicaraguan regime published this Friday in the official newspaper La Gaceta the reform of the Constitution that had been approved the day before in the first of two legislatures urgently in order to ensure that those sentenced for crimes considered “treason” are dispossessed of his nationality.

Parliament seeks to reform article 21 of the Constitution to strip the “traitors of the homeland” of their nationality (EFE)

The amendment -which still must be approved by a second legislature- applies to article 21 and establishes that “the acquisition, loss and recovery of nationality will be regulated by law. The taridores to the homeland lose the quality of Nicaraguan national.

To this end, the country’s National Assembly expeditiously approved the “Special Law Regulating the Loss of Nicaraguan Nationality”, the first article of which establishes that “persons sentenced under the provisions of the Law for the Defense of the People’s Independence , Sovereignty and Self-determination for Peace, published on December 22, 2020, will lose their nationality”.

According to the approved norm, the judicial authority will be in charge of enforcing the Law, and must notify the Supreme Electoral Council.

(With information from EFE)

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