The IAPA asks Ortega for guarantees for journalistic coverage in the Nicaragua 2021 elections

The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) urged the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, to offer guarantees for journalistic coverage before the presidential elections next Sunday, in which Ortega seeks re-election.

In a statement, the SIP warned that the repression in Nicaragua represents a threat to journalistic activity, given the refusal to admit the entry into the country of several representatives of the international press.

“The main international organizations have declared these elections as very little credible and the most recent actions of the Ortega government not only confirm this, but also indicate a serious setback in terms of freedom of expression”, assured the president of the SIP, Jorge Canahuati.

For his part, the president of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Carlos Jornet, warned that he will hold the government responsible for any incident with the press.

“We are forced to hold the Nicaraguan authorities responsible for any incident that may occur to the detriment of journalists and the national and international media during the electoral process,” Jornet said.

Last July, the hemispheric organization carried out a “virtual mission” to the Central American country in which for several days it held interviews with sectors of civil society, the statement recalls.

In the aforementioned “mission”, the interlocutors of the IAPA denounced “the actions of vigilante and paramilitary groups, often hooded, that constantly intimidate and pressure the opponents and their families.”

“For months we have been denouncing these opaque elections in Nicaragua, but the Ortega government never stops surprising us with new methods of repression and harassment against the opposition and independent journalism,” Canahuati and Jornet assured.

Both also pointed out that a large part of the bleak outlook for press freedom in the hemisphere is due to the situation in Nicaragua, where the only printed newspaper in the country, La Prensa, was intervened by the police, three journalists are imprisoned and many had to go out to the exile.

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