Nicaraguan journalist Miguel Mendoza gets a 9-year sentence

Jose Miguel Mendoza Urbina

A judge sentenced Jose Miguel Mendoza Urbina to nine years in prison on Wednesday, February 16, during a closed-door hearing in the Ninth Criminal District Court of Managua, Nicaragua. In a judgment last week, the court found the journalist guilty of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and disseminating false news. As CPJ reported, Mendoza's lawyer said he would appeal his conviction after his conviction.

Police raided his Managua home on June 21, 2021, and Mendoza was detained as a result. In addition to covering sports for Nicaraguan outlets for more than 30 years, he shares commentary on politics and human rights issues on social media, as well as criticisms of the government of President Daniel Ortega.

Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) reported that Mendoza, who used social networks to criticize Ortega's government, was also disqualified for the same period from holding public office. 

According to the agency, the judge also ordered the journalist’s assets confiscated.

Mendoza was arrested in June 2021, during the wave of arrests of opposition leaders and critics of Sandinismo, in the context of the general elections in November, in which Ortega he was re-elected for a fifth term, the fourth in a row and the second with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president.

He became one of the most followed characters on social networks in Nicaragua due to his denunciations of the attacks against anti-government protesters in 2018, which according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), left 355 dead of which Ortega admitted 200 and maintained it was an attempt at a coup.