UNESCO awards the press freedom price to “la prensa”

The UNESCO World Freedom of Freedom Prize was awarded on Saturday at “La Prensa”, a historic daily from Nicaragua, the drafting of which was forced to exile by the fierce repression of the government.

Dean of the Nicaraguan newspapers, “La Prensa”, which had played an important role in the fight against the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, denounced the stranglehold on the power of President Daniel Ortega, who has directed this country of Central America since 2007, and his wife Rosario Murillo, vice-president since 2017 and became “co-president” in February.

Faced with the repeated attacks by the authorities, this daily newspaper founded in 1926 had to stop its paper publication in 2021. Its employees fled Nicaragua and is now broadcast online from abroad.

“No independent journalism”

His manager Juan Lorenzo Holmann was arrested in 2021, sentenced to nine years in prison for funding for funds, before being released and expelled to the United States, with 221 other dissidents, in February 2023. The newspaper’s headquarters in the capital Managua was transformed into a “cultural center” by the authorities.

“It is a great honor for the take to receive this award (…) and we receive it with a deep gratitude in these difficult times that we are going through,” reacted Juan Lorenzo Holmann, joined by AFP.

“In Nicaragua, there is no independent journalism, the dictatorship criminalizes him. The exercise of journalism is not a vocation, it is not a profession, it has become a priesthood, “he added, saying that” this award is not only for the Prensa but for Nicaragua and for all independent journalists who continue to make reports from abroad “.

“True nightmare”

“The Persa has made courageous efforts to bring the truth to the people of Nicaragua,” praised the president of the jury having awarded this prize, Yasuomi Sawa: “Forced to exile, this newspaper courageously maintains the flame of press freedom”.

Nicaragua is ranked 172nd (out of 180) in the press freedom classification published Friday by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), which believes that “the independent press continues to live a real nightmare” in this country. The UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Freedom Prize for the name of a Colombian journalist murdered in 1986 – will be officially handed over during a ceremony on May 7 in Brussels.

Each year he rewards “a person, an organization or an institution having made an exceptional contribution to the defense or the promotion of press freedom, wherever in the world, in particular when this contribution was obtained in defiance of danger with Bravoure”, explains UNESCO.

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