2021/03/04 07:10 MEXICO CITY (AP) The Committee to Protect Journalists and three other press freedom groups called on the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Wednesday to stop harassing and targeting media outlets. The call came on Nicaragua’s Journalists Day. “News outlets have been forced to close and individual journalists threatened, harassed, sued, surveilled and jailed, as dozens more fled the country for their own safety” since the government began cracking down on protests in 2018, according to the CPJ statement. Ortega’s government has seized media properties and passed laws mandating prison sentences for those who use online platforms to spread information the government considers false or alarming.
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Joint statement on the National Day of the Journalist in Nicaragua
Journalists work outside a hotel where a meeting of the National Coalition is taking place in Managua. (Photo by INTI OCON / AFP) (Photo by INTI OCON/AFP via Getty Images) As Nicaragua recognizes the National Day of the Journalist today, the undersigned organizations express our solidarity with Nicaraguan journalists and call on authorities across the country to put an end to widespread harassment of journalists and ensure the media and press freedom organizations can work safely.
Since Nicaraguan officials and state security forces responded to widespread protests in April 2018 with a brutal crackdown on protesters and the media, Nicaragua has become an ever-more hostile climate for the press. News outlets have been forced to close and individual journalists threatened, harassed, sued, surveilled and jailed, as dozens more fled the country for their own safety.