Washington —
Maria Lilly Delgado never wanted to leave Nicaragua. As a veteran reporter, she had covered human rights in her beleaguered country for decades. And Delgado had an important side gig, too, training other journalists for a prominent foundation.
But last May, for questioning in a politically tainted case, then slapped her with a travel ban – a sign of trouble to come. Delgado had to act.
“Just because I demanded the right to attend with a lawyer on my side, the prosecution office changed my status from a witness to being investigated,” Delgado told VOA.
“It has been one of the most difficult decisions in my life. You don't want to leave the country you love, the job you love and everything that you love.
“But it was about my freedom.”
The freedom Delgado prized, however, is a disappearing if not completely vanished concept in Nicaragua, where de facto dictator Daniel Ortega has crushed political opposition and taken sweeping measures to wipe out independent or opposition media.
The result has been a massive . More than 120 have left the country in the last four years, rights groups say, under forced media closures, economic pressures and the regime’s repressive “foreign agents” and fake news laws.
Nicaragua today is one of the world’s worst places for press freedom, according to the Paris watchdog group – ranked 160 out of 180 countries and territories in the group’s new 2022 report. And it’s not only journalists who are fleeing.
“Emigration has increased exponentially,” . “The state of mind within Nicaragua is a mixture of fear of repression and hopelessness, with countless young people expressing their desire to leave the country on social networks.”
Delgado, 49, now lives in the United States. Her transformation to émigré reporter reflects a phenomenon that goes beyond just Nicaragua, mirroring the circumstances in Russia, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Belarus and other territories where autocrats rule.
Delgado has reported in Nicaragua for more than 25 years, and she said the media climate in Nicaragua has always been hostile, though more intensely so since 2018.
As a correspondent for the U.S.-based Spanish-language Univision network, she always had to look over her shoulder on the streets of Managua, the capital.
“You wouldn’t know what could happen to you, because the riot police and paramilitary forces were everywhere,” she said. “They would make themselves visible to intimidate us and those we were interviewing.”
Exile brings different challenges.
Delgado co-founded the website Huellas De Impunidad (Traces of Impunity) shortly before leaving and continues reporting for the site, which specializes in documenting human rights abuses. Working from the U.S., though, adds the burden of distance.
“As risky as it was, when I was in the country, it was easy for me to get first sources for my stories,” she said. “But now, I have to chase four or sometimes even more sources to confirm one story. The process is much longer and obviously harder.”
She feels an added duty to explain what’s happened to her profession.
“Since the same thing is happening to journalists in places like Russia, Hong Kong, Venezuela and Cuba, the international community should understand what is happening to journalists in Nicaragua and find ways to help them.”
Another Nicaraguan journalist, Cindy Regidor, is a reporter and editor with Confidencial, which presents a daily video and other social media.
Regidor moved to Costa Rica of her own volition, but many of her colleagues were forced to join her there after the site’s offices were ransacked by the police last May.
Fear of reprisal makes it dangerous for people inside Nicaragua to open up.
“The hardest part right now is that sometimes we have different sources that can confirm that something is happening, but none of them are willing to go public about it or go on the record,” said Regidor, 33.
“It’s even harder for because some people are like, ‘OK, I can give you this interview but only for the text version – I don't want to go on video,’ because it entails a great risk for them,” Regidor said.
So, protecting sources has become a top priority, particularly after Maria Oviedo, a prominent human rights activist, was jailed after appearing on Regidor’s show.
“She was arrested a week after we hosted her on our programming, where she talked about human rights abuses in Nicaragua,” Regidor said. “The court used the interview as evidence against Maria Oviedo. It was very hard.”