Nicaragua to leave UNESCO to deepen absence of press freedom

La Prensa has been operating online from exile since 2021

Nicaragua announced it would be withdrawing from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), effective Dec. 31, 2026, after it granted the 2025 Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize to the opposition newspaper La Prensa. The regime of President Daniel Ortega said the accolade was “unacceptable” and accused the publication of promoting violence and fostering anti-Nicaraguan values.

On Saturday, Unesco awarded its ‘Guillermo Cano’ press freedom prize to La Prensa, for “bringing the truth to the people of Nicaragua”, despite the “repression” and “exile” of its journalists. La Prensa ceased print operations in 2021 and now operates digitally with its staff in exile in Costa Rica, the United States, Mexico, Spain, and Germany due to government repression.

UNESCO’s Director General, Audrey Azoulay, expressed regret over Nicaragua’s decision, emphasizing the organization’s commitment to press freedom. “I regret this decision, which will deprive the people of Nicaragua of the benefits of cooperation in areas such as education and culture,” Azoulay said. A total of 194 countries belong to UNESCO.

The Central American country’s ranking in this regard has plummeted to 172nd out of 180, with independent media suppressed, journalists exiled, and several detained.

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke said that “the newspaper La Prensa represents the vile betrayal of our homeland by being a media that has promoted and supported throughout history, violence, interference, hate crimes, cruelty, anti-culture and anti-values.”

“It is deeply shameful that UNESCO is a promoter and evidently an accomplice of an action that offends and attacks the deepest values of Nicaraguan identity and national culture, losing its objectivity and disqualifying itself,” he added.

Some 50 independent or government-critical media outlets have closed in Nicaragua, their assets confiscated. Some 300 journalists have gone into exile. In addition, four journalists have been detained, one of them for reporting on the rising cost of living, and the whereabouts of three of them are still unknown, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.