NICARAGUA
Political clashes between government powers have had a negative impact on freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
The unconstitutional Nicaraguan journalists association ("colegio" in Spanish), which faces a number of court challenges, announced that journalists must join by July 15, 2005 in order to legally practice journalism. The association holds that unsanctioned journalism may be prosecuted by jail time under a nineteenth-century vagrancy law.
On a positive note, National Assembly Justice Commission member Wálmaro Gutiérrez stated that the National Assembly would hold a plenary debate on approval of the Freedom of Information Act.
On August 14, Rony Adolfo Olivas Olivas was shot from behind by a taxi driver who was ferrying him home. Santos Oseguera Palacios gunned down the correspondent for the dailies, La Prensa and Hoy, in the city of Estelí, some 100 miles northwest of the capital, Managua.
The journalist had received death threats over the phone in the weeks following his reporting on international and local drug trafficking. However, an argument over the fare has not been ruled out as a motive. The taxi driver, 33, fled the scene but surrendered to the police a few days later and led them to where he had hid the gun. The trial is set for the end of October.
Media companies view an amendment to Article 68 of the constitution, and the consequent approval of an amendment to the Tax Equalization Act that significantly reduced media company tax exemptions, to be a violation of Principle 7 of the Declaration of Chapultepec. This is viewed as a reprisal against the leading media outlets for opposition to the pact between the two main political parties that control voting blocks in the National Assembly. President Bolaños vetoed the Tax Equalization Act article that would have reduced media tax breaks. However, two months after the National Assembly failed to override or approve the veto, the president then enacted and published the law, including the vetoed article.
An IAPA commission that visited Nicaragua expressed its concern that, "it is all too frequent in the Americas for politicians to seek to punish or control the media through legislation, selective placement of government advertising, and restrictions on government information all of which constitute a threat to and constraint upon freedom of the press."
A Channel 12 cameraman, Gerardo Mercado, suffered a head injury on April 25 while covering violent clashes between university students and police.
On May 9, Mario José Espinoza Chamorro, a photographer with La Trinchera newspaper was detained and arbitrarily questioned by bodyguards for the Nicaraguan first lady, after he photographed her entering a casino.
On June 16, in what is viewed as a government political reprisal, the Nicaraguan Internal Revenue Service shut down Trinchera de la Noticia for three days and levied a fine against the newspaper, alleging that it owed back taxes from July 2002.
Although Trinchera is a small circulation newspaper, it has a great deal of political weight as the official organ for former President Arnoldo Alemán, who is under house arrest after being sentenced to 20 years for corruption.
Manuel Guillén, a cartoonist for La Prensa, was repeatedly emailed a threat on June 20, which stated in part, "You're a dead man." Guillén had satirized a statement by Daniel Ortega that the president of Nicaragua could order the police to kill the owners of La Prensa and television Channel 2. Ortega had mocked a presidential order that the police were to obey the president's orders alone and not the courts in the growing institutional conflict between government branches. After Guillén denounced the threats, the police provided him a bodyguard.
On July 1, the Supreme Court upheld an appeal for protection of constitutional rights by Radio 560, La Poderosa, which had been shut down by the government. The court restored its legal rights and ordered the return of equipment confiscated by government officials when they closed the station. La Trinchera also has a similar appeal before the Supreme Court.
On July 1, Heberto Jarquín Manzanares, La Prensa correspondent on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, reported that he had received death threats from Evaristo Rivas Sánchez, former commander of the now-defunct Frente Único Andrés Castro (FUAC), an irregular armed group comprised of former Sandinista military officers. Jarquín had written stories naming Rivas as an instigator of land seizures. FUAC leaders brought a lawsuit against the journalist.
