Carlos Chamorro is a Nicaraguan journalist of 45 years standing. The assassination of his father, editor of ‘La Prensa’, in 1978 was one of the events that led to the overthrow of the Somoza regime. His mother, Violeta, went on to serve as President from 1990 to 1997, a period in which a free press flourished.
Since Daniel Ortega’s second rise to power in 2007, he and his wife Rosario Murillo have sought to impose ‘uncontaminated information’ on the country, intimidating independent journalists with physical violence and prosecution. The regime has shut down 40 radio and TV stations and exiled 150 journalists, including Carlos Chamorro.
What follows is an adapted extract from the Memorial Lecture he gave at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University on March 6 into the difficulties of producing journalism while forced to live outside one’s homeland.
