There are ten vehicles packed with police officers outside my house. They shout, break in by force, and take me away. My family watches in despair, not understanding why this is happening.
I’m crying.
Luckily, this isn’t real. It’s just a nightmare that I’ve been having for the past three years. In 2021, I had to leave Nicaragua to prevent this terrible dream from becoming reality.
But I still have this nightmare.
I’m still scared.
I still worry about those who I left behind.
My heart races every time journalists —or those who once practiced journalism— are persecuted, imprisoned or expelled from Nicaragua.
“I did the right thing by leaving,” I tell myself every time.
Living in exile is a challenge. And continuing to report on what is happening in Nicaragua, from outside the country, is an even greater challenge. This is the reality in which we at CONFIDENCIAL work in.
We do everything in our power to reach out to sources inside and outside of Nicaragua, people who can provide reliable, first-hand information, even if they are scared to do so. My colleagues continue to do independent journalism while seeking ways to guarantee the sustainability of our media outlet under these conditions.
As July ends, I can’t help but feel psychologically affected by the most recent persecution campaign executed by Daniel Ortega’s regime. Three years ago, I also experienced what journalists and civil society in general are living now. In months like this, I involuntarily relive what happened to me on July 7, 2021. I remember when a “police officer” came to “ask about me” at my door. Once again, I experience the same fear.
And I ask myself over and over: “What did I really do?”
I simply dreamed of seeing my byline in a story. I just wanted to have a profession that made me feel proud. I only wanted to be a journalist. And because I am a journalist, I am the “enemy.”
“Enemies of humanity”
I don’t even have the most notable “name.” And there weren’t many “headlines” or “great investigations” where you can see my byline. But today, three years after I left my country and stepped into nothingness, VP Rosario Murillo continues to repeat the same monologue during the “month of the (Nicaraguan) Revolution”.
It starts with threatening speeches and ends with a new group of journalists expelled, imprisoned, or banished. However, it’s not enough for her.
As July 2024 came to a close, we saw more persecuted priests, more canceled NGOs, and more State workers from the Judiciary, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Municipalities, and even some high-ranking military officers, imprisoned or “purged.”
In the eyes of the regime, journalists are “enemies of humanity.”
“Among those enemies of humanity are the traitors and cowards, those who failed their people (….) those who sold out their homeland,” Murillo said in her noontime speech on July 18, 2024.
She is not only referring to journalists. That is how Rosario Murillo sees all of those who went into exile, escaping government harrasment or trying to continue telling the truth to the world.
“Hope is the last thing to be lost,” I remind myself.
Or rather, it is the last thing that we should lose. Even though my nightmare comes to me again and again, I also hold on to the dream of returning to Nicaragua someday. And even though this goal seems more and more distant, I trust that the time will come and we will see democracy reinstated in Nicaragua.
I know that to see a Nicaragua without a dictatorship again, we must continue to report the arbitrariness, crimes, and state of terror that the Ortega-Murillo regime has imposed. That is why I continue working at CONFIDENCIAL, even from exile. And that is why I try to make whoever I can, see how important the contributions of our readers are to our outlet. Donations are one of the few ways to guarantee the existence of independent journalism in Nicaragua.
This article was originally published in confidencial.digital, the website of CONFIDENCIAL, an exiled media outlet from Nicaragua and a member of NEMO. The name of the author has not been revealed due to security measures.
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