Nicaraguan journalist in exile Néstor Arce has been categorical, stating this Friday that currently working in his profession in Nicaragua is «a high-risk job», because «the dictatorship» of President Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo can put you in prison and «maybe» even kill you.
«Now working as a journalist in Nicaragua is a high-risk job,» said Arce for Europa Press during his participation these days in Madrid in an event of Reporters Without Borders (SIP), recalling the case of Angel Gahona, killed while covering the protests of 2018.
Awarded along with twelve colleagues with this year’s Ortega y Gasset Journalism Prize for their work in the digital media Divergentes, Arce is one of the 180 journalists who have had to leave Nicaragua since the situation of the media and its workers began to deteriorate in 2007.
Since 2007, the authoritarian drift that Nicaragua has been suffering has been part of a plan orchestrated by Ortega to «entrench himself in power» and «treat the country like a farm», says Arce. Murillo, who serves as vice president, «has an obsession for control, she doesn’t want anything to slip through her fingers».
«Journalists continue to leave the country every day because they cannot work. They are persecuted, their families are threatened, the media are being shut down, censored. However, when they decide to go into exile, most of them also choose to continue reporting what is happening inside», said Arce.
In this sense, he acknowledged the difficulty of continuing to report once they have left the country, for this reason he wanted to highlight the sources and the few «brave journalists» who remain inside and «have decided to take their chances in a clandestine manner».
The «catacomb journalism» that helped to overthrow dictator Anastasio Somoza in the 70’s is serving, Arce says, «to confront Sandinismo, that paradoxical revolution that now represses and persecutes journalists».
«When you are outside the exercise becomes more complex, twice, three times more complex because you are not only geographically separated, but also sometimes disconnected from the reality there. Many journalists inside have become tired, they no longer want to be persecuted, or you lose contact with your sources,» he says.
In order to continue working in his profession, Arce explained that Nicaraguan journalists have had no choice but to «reinvent themselves», once the written press has ceased to be present in the lives of Nicaraguans due to the political, social and fiscal pressures to which the media have been subjected.
«Nicaragua is the only country in the hemisphere without any printed newspaper», denounced Arce, who insisted that they will not cease in their efforts to dedicate themselves to this profession. With the closure of at least fifty media outlets, many of them have had to dedicate themselves exclusively to their web version in order to continue operating.
Arce has exposed the «three horrifying laws» that prevent the free exercise of this profession: «one that wants to control the money that journalists and media receive from donations to continue practicing», one of cybercrimes with «a very ambiguous article that leaves the State to define what is false news» and one of life imprisonment «for traitor to the homeland».
«Right now there are fifteen people imprisoned and sentenced for writing a tweet or a Facebook status», said Arce, who despite everything, and the fact that «it costs three times more to do it», is confident in the power of Nicaraguan journalism. «We are not going to stop doing it,» he concluded.
WORKING FROM ANONYMITY Arce, with refugee status in Costa Rica, regretted that «the regime» of Ortega and Murillo canceled his passport to prevent him from attending the Ortega y Gasset Award ceremony in Valencia in April, along with several colleagues, some also absent, others without revealing their names so as «not to expose their safety».
The cancellation of his passport, he says, is nothing more than a new form of exercising «repression» when he achieves a certain exposure for his work as a journalist. «This being anonymous is sometimes frustrating for journalists,» Arce acknowledges, since the «excitement» and «joy» one feels when seeing his or her signature on a news story or on the front page of a newspaper «is what pushes you to continue doing what you do.
«Sometimes you have to face that for safety and not sign. We at Divergentes have published interviews, reports, big and very important investigations, but anonymously because the reporter can’t keep exposing himself that way,» he lamented.
WORK FROM EXILE Arce stressed that the work of counter-power and oversight of the Nicaraguan media continues despite government pressures and the persecution of journalists largely because it is carried out from abroad.
«As all the media are in exile, the press plays its role of controlling, in the ways we can, the power, of going to the bottom and scrutinizing the cases not only of repression, but also corruption, embezzlement, environmental exploitation, mining, extensive cattle ranching, murders of indigenous people», all this, he denounced, under the protection of «the umbrella of the dictatorship».
