3 de May 2025
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The Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa has been named the winner of the 2025 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for its efforts to “bring the truth to the people” despite the “severe repression” it has faced—and continues to face—in its home country.
UNESCO, which announces the prize each year on May 3, highlighted in a statement that since 2021, when the Nicaraguan regime imprisoned and expelled the newspaper’s leadership and confiscated its assets, La Prensa has continued reporting to the public, with most of its team now in exile and operating from Costa Rica, Spain, Mexico, Germany, and the United States.
Yasuomi Sawa, chair of the international jury composed of media professionals, emphasized that “La Prensa has made brave efforts to bring the truth to the people of Nicaragua.”
“Like other civil society organizations, La Prensa has faced severe repression. Forced into exile, this newspaper bravely keeps the flame of press freedom burning,” adds Sawa.
The Director-General of Unesco, Audrey Azoulay, said that this prize, created in 1997, “is a tribute to all journalists who continue to inform us despite many risks and attacks on their personal safety” and recalls “the importance of standing by those who protect and give life to information”.
In an initial response, La Prensa’s general manager and editor, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, said receiving the award is “a tremendous honor” and “a recognition that shines light—especially in times of great need—on La Prensa’s more than 99 years of unyielding commitment to truth and freedom of expression.”
Holmann emphasized that since its founding in 1926, La Prensa “has been present, active, and alongside the Nicaraguan people.”
“From the harsh censorship under the Somoza dictatorship and the first Sandinista dictatorship in the 1980s, to the repression imposed by the Ortega-Murillo regime,” the editor said, “La Prensa has resisted, denounced abuses, informed the public, and shared in the Nicaraguan people’s longing for peace and freedom.”
He believes the award comes as “well-deserved recognition” for all those who have contributed—journalists, editors, photographers, designers, administrative and support staff—and he specifically remembers the 1978 assassination of then-director Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal.
“This recognition,” he concluded, “deeply honors us, but also renews our commitment to continue producing journalism that is courageous, ethical, truthful, and free.”
The award is named in honor of Colombian journalist Guillermo Cano Isaza, who was assassinated on December 17, 1986, outside the offices of his newspaper El Espectador in Bogotá.
The award ceremony is scheduled for May 7 in Brussels.
