4 de May 2025
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The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua condemned and rejected the World Press Freedom Prize awarded by Unesco and the Guillermo Cano Foundation to the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa. The regime described the recognition as a “shameful” and “macabre decision” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
“We reject and condemn before UNESCO the recognition given to La Prensa, which is a diabolical spawn of Nicaraguan anti-patriotism,” stated a declaration from the Sandinista Executive led by the “co-presidents” Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Their regime ordered the raid and confiscation of the newspaper’s facilities in August 2021, including the imprisonment and impeachment of its general manager, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, released from prison and exiled in February 2023.
“La Prensa represents a betrayal of the homeland, precisely because it is a media outlet that has promoted and supported violence, interference, hate crimes, cruelty, anticulture, and antivalues throughout its history. A media outlet at the service of and promoting the defense of U.S. military and political occupations and interventions in Nicaragua,” the statement continued.
La Prensa Award
La Prensa de Nicaragua, founded on March 2, 1926, was chosen as winner of the World Press Freedom Prize awarded by Unesco and the Guillermo Cano Foundation for its efforts to “bring the truth to the people” despite the “severe repression” to which it has been and is subjected in its country, in the framework of Press Freedom Day, which is commemorated on May 3.
For the Government of Nicaragua, “it is deeply shameful that Unesco appears as a promoter, and evidently an accomplice, of an action that offends and attacks the deepest values of Nicaraguan national identity and culture”.
“Throughout history, the people of Nicaragua have rejected foreign impositions, we have fought against them, and we have triumphed in every episode and chapter, representing with nobility and vigor our right to our cultures, our life, and the feelings and emotions of a people who neither sell out nor surrender, ever,” continued the Nicaraguan government’s message.
Unesco “discredits itself”, according to the dictatorship
According to the Sandinista regime, “by highlighting those who are submissive, servile, and lackeys of colonialism and imperialism, UNESCO completely loses its sense of objectivity and discredits itself as a supposed guardian and defender of the world’s heroic, cultural, and identity-based heritage.”
“One only needs to look at Nicaragua’s noble history to understand who the infamous figures UNESCO is recognizing are—an action that undermines and attacks national values, culture, and identity. It is an offensive, humiliating, and degrading move that, unfortunately, adds to the wave of despicable submissiveness sweeping through international organizations, particularly those within the United Nations that should be upholding the principles and values of the human family,” the statement added.
In its statement, the government claimed that “in Nicaragua, the coup-mongering vandalism was rejected, and this macabre decision by UNESCO only confirms that we are living in times of bewilderment and contradiction—dark, precarious, dangerous, even malevolent times—which, of course, distort, discredit, and ultimately deny the very purpose and existence of institutions that clearly no longer serve the supreme and higher interests of the people.”
La Prensa, which has its entire editorial staff in exile, its building expropriated by the Ortega and Murillo government, and which is experiencing the toughest situation in its 99-year history, said that the Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2025, which was awarded to them, gives them the “moral strength to move forward”.
In addition, the newspaper cited the annual report of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) that placed Nicaragua in 172nd place in the World Press Freedom Index 2025, which places it at the bottom of the table with the worst ranking, above only Russia, Belarus, Cuba and Venezuela.
*With information from EFE.
