Ortega and Murillo intensify internet censorship, the last bastion of freedom of expression in Nicaragua

Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have extended the censorship imposed by their co-presidential regime to the internet. This effectively closes off the last remaining bastion of freedom of expression and of the press in Nicaragua for dissenting voices. With the enactment of the new General Law of Convergent Telecommunications, the two-headed administration is not only imposing a technical change in how networks, antennas, and the internet are organized in the Central American country, but is also consolidating a system of total censorship in the last remaining space for expressing dissent.

According to opposition groups, who have dubbed it the “gag law,” one of the most alarming aspects is the total power granted to the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Postal Services (TELCOR). At the head of this agency is Nahima Díaz Flores, daughter of the National Police Chief, Commissioner Francisco Díaz, and sister-in-law of one of the presidential couple’s sons. According to Law No. 1223, among its many broad prerogatives, the regulatory body will be able to demand statistical and georeferenced data from audiovisual operators and providers.

Providers will be required to align themselves with the police — the primary repressive arm of the co-presidential couple — and the intelligence services, thus consolidating a digital surveillance system capable of reconstructing who communicates with whom, from where, how frequently, and at what times. Alexa Zamora, author of the report “Convergent Telecommunications Law and its Impact on the Exercise of Human Rights,” is one of the most frequently cited experts in Nicaraguan media. She warns that the “Convergent Telecommunications Law, in conjunction with the reforms to the Cybercrimes Law and Nicaragua’s adherence to the United Nations Convention on Cybercrime, could establish a legal framework that facilitates the restriction of freedom of expression and other digital rights in Nicaragua.”

“Although regulating telecommunications and combating cybercrime are legitimate objectives, it is essential that these laws are implemented with respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, which in a context like Nicaragua is clearly not the case,” the expert warns.

Surveillance network

This new regulation, approved last week, adds to other punitive laws promoted by the Sandinista regime after 2018, the year of social protests, which have been used to silence all critical voices, especially that of journalism which — despite persecution and systematic exile — still resists and uses the internet and social networks as its main tool.

These laws include the Cybercrimes Law, which allows the presidential couple to define what constitutes fake news and impose sentences of up to eight years in prison; the Foreign Agents Law, which criminalizes international cooperation; and the “treason” law, which includes loss of citizenship and confiscation of assets. Prior to the implementation of the Convergent Telecommunications Law, the Sandinista regime had already begun to besiege the internet by blocking .com.ni domains belonging to independent media outlets, pressuring cable television companies to remove critical channels from their lineups, and issuing threats through TELCOR against local radio and television stations, not to mention the political imprisonment and harassment that has forced more than 250 journalists into exile.

A law sold as modern

Judging by what the government says, Law 1223 arises from the need to modernize the entire telecommunications framework: fixed and mobile telephony, internet, cable television, streaming services, use of the radio spectrum, satellites, and even certain digital platforms. However, in Articles 1 and 3, the law conceals a hidden agenda: it not only regulates public telecommunications services, but also audiovisual communications services, the use of the radio spectrum, numbering resources, satellite signals arriving in the country, and any person or company that imports telecommunications equipment.

TELCOR, the same institution that finances and organizes pro-government troll farms that were shut down by Meta, is the entity that calls the shots and makes all the decisions. “Simply put: if until now the regime controlled all the content — closing media outlets, blocking websites, intimidating journalists — with Law 1223 it aims to control the channels through which information travels as well. Not only what is said, but where it is said, with what quality, who facilitates it, under what conditions, and to whom it is accountable,” warns journalist Néstor Arce, editor of the Divergentes media outlet and a leading expert on technological issues.

“Where the law most clearly reveals its macabre objective of control is in the section dedicated to the provision of information, supervision, and oversight. Article 110 obliges public telecommunications service operators and audiovisual communications service providers to hand over ‘all the information that is requested of them,’ including statistical and georeferenced information, periodically or based on specific requests from TELCOR,” Arce explains.

Experts point out that the impact of surveillance will be notable in areas such as identifying networks of people without reading a single message, since TELCOR, by requesting all of a user’s connections and cross-referencing them with the surveillance and intelligence apparatus recently denounced by the United Nations Group of Experts, can reconstruct a map of someone’s relationships or a geographical map of movements and activity patterns of opponents or those it considers suspicious.

It will also be able to track opposition meetings in different regions and map the consumption of independent information. “Let’s imagine an exiled media outlet that broadcasts a news program on YouTube and receives a spike in views from Nicaragua every day at 8:00 p.m. From a network perspective, this is a group of devices connecting to the same domain or server at the same time,” Arce explains in his article. “But if TELCOR has access to aggregated statistical data, it can determine which areas of the country have the highest concentration of that media outlet’s audience. By cross-referencing this information with socioeconomic data or records from the Supreme Electoral Council, it can profile the population consuming critical content. In a more intrusive scenario, it could even compile lists of phones that repeatedly access ‘problematic’ domains and then selectively block those sites in certain regions, or target specific propaganda campaigns against those audiences.”

With the implementation of the Convergent Telecommunications Law, paranoia among Nicaraguans has tripled, forcing them not only to remain silent but also to take the use of tools like VPNs and other digital precautions very seriously. This is what is being discussed, surreptitiously, on social media and in closed messaging groups.

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