Miami (July 22, 2022) - Nicaragua's situation shows no improvement. Like last week, the country governed by Daniel Ortega continues to be among the countries in the Americas with the worst state to exercise freedom of the press, as shown by the IAPA Bot of the Inter American Press Association.
Six journalists are still imprisoned in Nicaragua for invented crimes of money laundering and treason. On the other hand, 15 journalists, most of them from La Prensa, which only publishes digitally to escape censorship, fled the country to avoid reprisals from the regime.
The IAPA Bot heat map shows that Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Honduras have behaved with better press freedom than the previous week.
In addition to Nicaragua, Venezuela also showed signs of worsening. Several Venezuelan journalists and independent communicators in Madrid staged a sit-in in front of Telefónica's headquarters in Madrid. The act was to protest against Movistar, a subsidiary of Telefónica in Venezuela, because it blocks Internet pages of national and foreign media under the orders of the Nicolás Maduro regime, censoring the public's right to information.
The IAPA Bot showed that there are still great obstacles to practicing journalism in Mexico, Bolivia, and El Salvador.
On Twitter, the most used terms were "Lawfare" and "Fake News." The most used hashtag #libertadparadomingo is about Domingo Ortega, a Mexican social leader who was deprived of his freedom of expression. The @BrissioMauro account generated the most influential tweet with 2,857 interactions. It says, "This account will be dedicated to debunking fake news and the military until the Anti-Fake News law is passed."
To see more related tweets, you must enter the IAPA Bot. The "Protagonists" section will find the most influential actors discussing communication, journalism, and press freedom issues.
IAPA Bot is an artificial intelligence tool of the Inter American Press Association that monitors press freedom violations in real-time. It tracks information published in the media, Google News, Twitter, and IAPA reports and denunciations. In addition, it contains a heat map that allows observing the press freedom climate in each country, a button to make complaints and a menu that highlights the statements of government leaders, citizens' conversations, and relevant events.
IAPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and expression in the Americas. It comprises more than 1,300 publications from the western hemisphere; and is based in Miami, Florida, United States.
