MIAMI, Florida (November 5, 2018)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today energetically expressed its repudiation of the order by the Nicaraguan government to withdraw television station 100% Noticias from broadcasting on its cable channels, an act of censorship in reprisal for denunciation of the regime's repression.
The order came from the state body Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Postage (Telcor) which dropped the media outlet from the Canal 15 UHF open signal, which will now be reassigned to be broadcast by the Canal 6 signal, managed by the family of President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo.
IAPA President María Elvira Domínguez condemned "the impertinence of a regime that makes reprisals against independent journalists. It is an authoritarian government, a dictatorship disguised as one of democracy which punishes freedom of expression and of the press and the right to meet and protest."
Miguel Mora, president and owner of 100% Noticias, called the Telcor decision arbitrary and declared that his channel will continue "reporting on the truth" in the country through its page on YouTube and in social media.
On October 21 Mora received in Salta, Argentina, in representation of his country's independent journalists, the 2018 Press Freedom Grand Prize awarded by the IAPA for "bravely facing the pressures, intimidation and harassment without losing heart in their rigorous denunciation of the violation of human rights and the indiscriminate violence of the Daniel Ortega regime."
In a passionate message <> in representation of his colleagues Mora declared that to be a journalist in Nicaragua "it is today a question of life or death" and "to us there are violated all human rights for thinking and expressing differently, and we are called terrorists."
Roberto Rock, chairman of the IAPA's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, said that "It does not surprise us, because we know after his speech there could be consequences in a country that annuls freedom of expression, and finally we had them."
Rock, editor of the Mexico City, Mexico, news portal La Silla Rota, recalled during the IAPA mission to Nicaragua in August that there were verified the conditions of risk in which journalists and media carry out their work. "The unlawful and abusive decision of the regime against 100% Noticias is once more a demonstration of the violation of freedom of expression and of the press."
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida.
