Nicaraguan journalists have suffered 730 violations of freedom of expression since 2018

San José.- Nicaraguan journalists have suffered 730 violations of freedom of expression from 2018 to date and the State of Nicaragua is the main perpetrator, denounced this Tuesday the NGO Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FLED), based in Costa Rica. The report "Situational Status of Nicaraguan Women Journalists" reveals that communicators are abandoning the profession or fleeing their country for security reasons or to avoid reprisals. At least 106 of the 304 Nicaraguan media workers, mostly communicators, who have left their country for security reasons or have been banished since April 2018, are women, according to that NGO, which is part of the regional network Voces del Sur. Between 2018 and 2025, the systematization carried out by FLED recorded 730 violations against communicators, and 59.3% of these aggressions came directly from the state apparatus, "evidencing that the State of Nicaragua not only fails to protect, but also operates as the main perpetrator", according to the report. You can also read:

"There is clearly a guilty party, and it is not the female journalist. There is a State with total responsibility for the atrocities of human rights violations in Nicaragua at this time," the study warns.

That direct responsibility is manifested through state institutions that act in a coordinated manner, such as the National Police and the Public Ministry through unjustified summons and direct threats, and the judicial system through spurious criminal proceedings, it adds. Also administrative institutions through the cancellation of means and organizations or the use of public service institutions to limit access to the economic, social and cultural rights of women or their family nucleus. Furthermore, according to the report, the Government led by the spouses and co-presidents, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, "has developed a strategy of outsourcing violence that includes parapolice mobs, party militants with microphones and a license to stigmatize, as well as digital trolls who act with state impunity".

"These actors allow the State to maintain a facade of formal distancing while executing a systematic repression, creating an ecosystem of violence where women journalists face multiple and coordinated threats from various fronts," noted that NGO.

Sexual Violence

The analysis of the 730 documented cases reveals four distinctive phases that evidence the evolution of the state's repressive strategy: arbitrary detentions or summons before the Prosecutor's Office, direct physical violence, immediate censorship, and specific attacks for being women journalists Furthermore, the study indicates that the documented violations reveal specific patterns against women, such as cases of discrimination due to their female condition, systematic sexualized threats, instrumentalization of motherhood as psychological torture, among others. Eight out of 10 journalists seen by a psychologist reported being victims of sexual violence, the study warns. The study asserts that activists and journalists who are opponents or critics of the Sandinista government "are threatened with rape along with their sons and daughters, evidencing a specific pattern of sexualized violence." Communicators have also been victims of digital violence, where their personal and family lives are exposed, they are threatened with rape and attempts are made to ridicule them, and their intellectual capacity, professionalism, and even their physical features are attacked.