Telcor orders the cancellation of Radio Darío in Nicaragua

( Spanish) — Aníbal Toruño, director and owner of Radio Darío, said this Friday that the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Post Office (Telcor) notified them of the cancellation of their license and ordered the “immediate cessation of their transmissions,” arguing “technical and legal issues.”

The journalist described the justifications given by the authorities for the cancellation of the station, which is located in the city of León, 90 kilometers northeast of Managua, as “lies” and “humbug”.

“This decision is political, it is vertical and it had to be complied with. I had a report that they had to base their resolution on some justification and they went to invent technical questions that have no basis. We have complied with the law, we are within Within the framework of Law 200, we are within the framework of Law 670, which is the indefinite extension of licenses for radio, television and cable,” Toruño said.

According to the resolution signed by Nahima Díaz Flores, general director of Telcor, “Radio Darío has substantially modified and altered the authorized facilities and the conditions under which the FM sound broadcasting service must operate without prior authorization from Telcor, which constitutes a cause for license cancellation LIC-2004-RDS-093”.

The journalist says that the telecommunications regulator argues that they were not notified of the change of address of Radio Darío, after the fire that destroyed its facilities during the 2018 anti-government protests.

The director of the radio station, which reached the departments of León and Chinandega daily, defines it as a station that defends justice, democracy and human rights in Nicaragua.

The closure of Radio Darío is added to the cancellation of another 9 stations in the north of the country, most of them managed by the Catholic Church, a fact condemned by the European Union, the United States Department of State and the Permanent Council of the OAS.

Toruño, who reported that his outlet will continue with its informative programming online, recalled that, since its founding in 1949, Radio Darío “has been marked by closures, attacks, destruction, imprisonment and the exile of its founder, Juan Toruño Calderón, and of the current owner.