8 de marzo 2021
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At midnight on December 13, 2018, the National Police stormed the editorial offices of Confidencial and Esta Semana, the independent media outlets that I have directed for 25 years. There was no judicial or administrative resolution to justify the aggression, although we know that there was an unwritten political order from the Supreme Chief of Police, President Daniel Ortega.
During the assault, all our computers, cameras, and television editors were stolen, as well as the accounting and institutional documentation of three companies, personal property, and all our private information in physical and digital format. A day later, the police returned to occupy our newsroom permanently, and on Christmas Eve they raided the 100% Noticias channel, where they captured its director, Miguel Mora, and the press director, Lucía Pineda. My colleagues were imprisoned for six months and subjected to a political trial, accused of "terrorism" and "incitement to hatred" for practicing journalism.
With the criminalization of the practice of journalism, the family dictatorship headed by Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, culminated in an escalation of attacks against the independent press that began during the outbreak of civic protests in April 2018, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets, armed with their cell phones and the national flag, to demand the resignation of the rulers and early elections. The response of the presidential couple was to unleash a lethal repression that left more than 325 dead, all in impunity, hundreds of political prisoners, and more than 100,000 exiled. For the regime, independent journalism became an "enemy" to be crushed, imposing censorship and physical aggressions against media and journalists, until culminating with the approval of repressive laws to reinforce a police state that already violated the freedoms of assembly and mobilization, and the freedoms of press and expression by de facto means.
On January 1, 2019, I was forced to go into exile with my wife, to protect my physical integrity and to be able to continue doing journalism, in freedom, from Costa Rica. With our offices occupied by the police, the editorial staff of Confidencial was split between Managua, under persecution, San José, Miami, Mexico, and San Salvador, but we never stopped doing journalism.
Eleven months later, at the end of 2019, I returned to Nicaragua to reclaim my rights, practicing journalism without any guarantees. During all these years, the Supreme Court of Justice admitted three writs of amparo in which we asked the institution to order the cessation of the occupation. However, despite the evidence demonstrating the illegality, the legal deadline expired and the Court never ruled.
Finally, on December 22, 2020, the regime announced the illegal confiscation of the property by de facto means, through the installation of a sign and by assigning it to the Ministry of Health in open violation of the law and the Political Constitution. A few weeks ago, on Tuesday, February 23, 2021, the Ministry of Health installed a "Maternal House" in the editorial offices of Confidencial and Esta Semana. Three days later, at the location where the 100% Noticias channel used to operate, they inaugurated a "Center for attention to people with alcoholism and drug addiction". 
With this publicized “health work’, which is presented to the supporters of the regime as an act of generosity of the "comandante and the compañera" the intention is to finalize the closing of two independent media, executed manu militari, and the closing of several non-governmental organizations that promote human rights and the culture of democratic values. In reality, this is a crude attempt to "wash away" a State crime against the freedoms of press, expression, and association. The Government has violated Article 44 of the Political Constitution, which strictly establishes that in Nicaragua "the confiscation of property is prohibited".
Like drug traffickers and organized crime, Ortega and Murillo have tried to "launder" their crime, covering up the closure of a media outlet as if the health services that the State is obliged to provide were a gift from the State-party-family system. But the rulers left their unmistakable mark on the scene of the crime. At the editorial office of Confidencial, where journalists debated on how to tell stories to investigate power and corruption for more than two decades, practicing journalism in freedom, they have now imposed the giant-sized photographs of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, a symbol of censorship and dictatorship, with their omnipresent bright pink color.
Ortega and Murillo tried to erase the existence of a media outlet from the collective memory, but what they have done is to erect a monument to the crime against freedom of the press for all to see. They resorted to brute force to shut down an independent media outlet, but they could not confiscate journalism or silence Confidencial.
Never, not on the day of the police raid in 2018 nor as the illegal confiscation is now consummated, have we stopped reporting and scrutinizing power. Our newsroom is not within the four walls of a confiscated office, but in the minds and hearts of reporters, in the commitment of journalists to report the truth at any cost, without submitting ourselves to censorship.
But Confidencial's resistance would not be possible without the support of the audiences that sustain the credibility of our media. In a country where authoritarianism has caused the collapse of the rule of law and democratic institutions for over a decade, journalism is the last reserve of freedom. The only defense of journalism lies in the trust of its audiences. Thanks to the citizens, and to the users of social networks, we are defeating official censorship.
However, we still have to face the demons of intimidation and self-censorship that permeate all sectors of society, to overcome fear and win the battle for truth. Only in this way will we be able to clear the path towards true democratic change. And sooner rather than later, we will tell the great story of the 21st century: the end of the last dictatorship in the history of Nicaragua, to begin the construction of a new Republic in democracy, with justice, and without impunity.
This opinion article was originally published in El País (Spain). It has been translated by Ana María Sampson, a Communication Science student at the University of Amsterdam and member of our staff*
