Nicaragua is expected to rubber stamp a change to its constitution in January that alters presidential power and increases state control over media.
If ratified, the change would mandate that the state has power to ensure media outlets and platforms are not “subject to foreign interests and do not spread false news.”
Analysts say it would replicate a move in other authoritarian countries around the world, including Cuba, Venezuela and former Soviet countries.
Carlos Jornet, president of the freedom of the press and information committee of the Inter American Association, said that controlling free speech in social media and on the internet was a “growing phenomenon” in the Americas.
“Worse still, the governments promoting such controls do so after having co-opted the judiciary, the legislature, and all oversight bodies,” he told VOA.
“It is clear that when the government labels information as false, there will be no possibility to exercise a defense or argue about the veracity of a complaint or the relevance of an opinion,” Jornet said.
The latest reform, which was passed in November, must be confirmed in a second vote in January.
Requested by President Daniel Ortega, the reform seeks to extend his term in office from five to six years and change the role of vice president, who is Ortega’s wife Rosario Murillo, to “co-president.”
The police and military will be strengthened in a way that allows Ortega to tighten his grip on power in the Central American state.
Ortega’s attacks on media freedom have already forced hundreds of journalists and others into exile to avoid threat of arrest and imprisonment, say watchdogs.
More than 200 political prisoners were freed last year and expelled to the United States, including five former presidential hopefuls jailed after seeking to challenge Ortega in the 2021 election, and the publisher of one of the country’s oldest newspapers.
At least 229 people detained in Nicaragua for political reasons suffered torture and “crimes against humanity,” according to the nongovernmental organization, Nicaragua Never Again Human Rights Collective.
The group estimated that around 2,000 people have been arrested in connection with 2018 anti-government protests, Reuters reported this month.
Critics of the latest constitutional change say it effectively legalizes the “absolute power” wielded by Ortega and Murillo.
However, Gustavo Porras, the head of the Nicaraguan legislature, has said the reform will be approved next month and described the criticism as a “stupid way of carrying out opposition.”
The Nicaraguan Embassy in Madrid did not respond to VOA’s emailed request for comment.
Lucia Pineda Ubau, director of the news site 100% Noticias, said the new constitution will make it easier for authorities to target independent journalism.
“This is serious because it includes it in the constitution policy, which continues to punish, persecute and criminalize journalists and the media,” she told VOA from her home in exile in Costa Rica.
“This adds to the reform of cybercrime [legislation], which was passed in September this year,” she said.
The impending constitutional reforms propose increased sentences from 10 to 15 years in prison for propagating false news or misrepresentations that are ruled to have caused alarm, fear or anxiety. It also expands the law’s reach beyond Nicaragua’s borders.
“This government has increased the terror for exiled journalists,” Pineda said.
The changes in Nicaragua replicate similar laws and regulations in the region that analysts say are used to silence dissent and media.
In Venezuela, attacks on independent media by the government of President Nicolas Maduro over the past 11 years have created a “kind of news desert,” according to the Committee for Protection of Journalists.
A report that the watchdog published earlier this year found that the government did not bother to carry out a fresh crackdown against the media before the July presidential election because of the effectiveness of its sustained campaign of repression.
Cuba has also passed a series of laws that further regulate freedom of expression, said William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert and professor of government at American University in Washington.
“Cuba has similar laws to Nicaragua,” he told VOA, referencing Decree 35, which entails criminal penalties for dissemination of disinformation and requirements for telecommunications providers to suspend or terminate services.
“It also potentially gives authorities enormous latitude to criminalize online commentary [like] ‘inciting mobilizations or other acts that alter public order,’ ‘subverting the constitutional order’ or ‘defamation with an impact on the country’s prestige.’”
LeoGrande said that Cuba’s penal code, which came into force in 2022, contains provisions so broadly worded that they can be used to charge people for criticism or non-violent protest.
Cuba’s Social Communication Law, which came into force in October, imposes closer regulation on online communication and encourages the repression of dissenting voices.
Reporters With Borders said in October that 11 journalists have already been summoned by Cuba’s National Revolutionary Police, charged and forced to resign from their jobs.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the impending changes to Nicaragua’s constitution mark a further erosion of any checks and balances on executive power.
“If adopted, these changes will sound the death knell for fundamental freedoms and the rule of law in Nicaragua,” he said in a statement.
