Nicaragua police raid opposition paper, end rights groups' permits

Nicaraguan police have raided the offices of an opposition daily and then stripped human rights and activist groups' permission to operate, those targeted said.

Nine police officers armed with rifles entered the offices late Friday and started pushing people, beating others and making fun of reporters after journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro challenged them to take on his media outlet without a search warrant in his online daily Confidencial and news broadcasts Esta Semana and Esta Noche, he said.

What you are doing "is just de facto. If you have the order, I ask you to show it," Chamorro said from the street to the agent who barred him and other colleagues from entering the offices.

"Police did not show any order at all... so this is an armed assault on private property, freedom of the press, freedom of expression and free enterprise," he later told reporters.

Confidencial's front door was sealed with tape following the raid. Police seized work equipment and documents. Chamorro went to the police headquarters to demand the return of equipment, noting that the newspaper and television programs "are private companies attached to the commercial register, and have nothing to do with organizations that are being persecuted."