The president of Guatemala embarks on a crusade to silence journalism that reveals corruption

The edition of

was printed on the morning of Saturday, July 30, and circulated in Guatemala with a front page denouncing the arrest of its founder, renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora, and a back cover with a gagged person with the following warning: “We are not they will be silent”.

The newspaper, which since 1996 has documented corruption, thus reacted to the arrest of its founder and the simultaneous search of its newsroom, at the hands of President Alejandro Giammattei's Prosecutor's Office on the night of this Friday, July 29.

The police siege in the newsroom of

lasted until nine o'clock on Saturday morning.

Despite the fact that the armed police tried to boycott the circulation of the printed edition, the independent journalists of the Central American country joined forces to print and distribute an issue that records the crusade initiated by Giammattei, the attorney general Consuelo Porras and, above all, the conservative elites, against independent journalism that investigates and reveals cases of corruption.

Zamora's arrest is a watershed and could, according to Juan Pappier, of the NGO Human Rights Watch, "end up being a turning point for press freedom in Guatemala."

Pappier explains: “It is probably the most serious event that we have seen in recent years.

Obviously, there were previously some spurious criminal proceedings against journalists, for example, against Juan Luis Font, Sony Figueroa or Marvin del Cid”.

The representative of the international NGO adds: “But I think this has been taken to an even higher level and we may be at a breaking point;

before a signal that generates a lot of fear for independent journalists who are still in the country investigating corruption.”

The reasons for the arrest of Zamora, 65, one of Guatemala's leading journalists, are still not known, because the Prosecutor's Office has declared the case "under reserve."

However, the person leading the process against the journalist, the head of the Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity (FECI), Rafael Curruchiche, revealed that it is a case of "money laundering."

A statement hearing is scheduled for this Monday.

Zamora's house was raided by police while he was with his family, including his minor grandchildren who were visiting him for the holidays.

The president of

was transferred to the Mariscal Zavala prison and was blunt in saying that he is the victim of "political persecution."

“The Administration on duty has been super repressive and has persecuted decent people,” José Zamora, also a journalist and son of the president of elPeriódico

, tells EL PAÍS

.

“The fact is that there are 25 justice operators, including prosecutors and judges, who go into exile to investigate and denounce corruption.

They have always put pressure on the press, but now it is openly a persecution to intimidate and censor.

The raid was personally hard because my family was in Guatemala, my two children were with their grandfather... By chance I was talking to my father, asking him how the children had behaved, when during the call I heard my mother's voice yelling, saying that the police were entering the house,” described Zamora, who left Guatemala at the time due to pressure against his journalistic work.

“They want us to disappear”

Juan Luis Font, also sued by the justice system for his journalistic investigations into corruption, does not hesitate to say that journalism is under siege.

“They want to put an end to

because, at least three times a week, it identifies cases of corruption in the public works of the current government.

And I assure you that they are doing the same with my radio program.

What they really want is to get them out of mainstream media.

They simply and simply want us to disappear as referents of the national press”, says this journalist who left Guatemala to preserve his freedom.

Those identified by Font as the “wanters” are not just President Giammattei and the battery of prosecutors whom the United States has placed on the Engels list for being anti-democratic actors who foster corruption, but also Guatemala's conservative business elite.

In particular, Ricardo Mendez Ruiz, someone who presents himself as a "businessman, far-right activist and president of the Foundation Against Terrorism."

This foundation gained notoriety after the trial for genocide against Efraín Ríos Montt began by vindicating the military vision of the armed conflict.

Ruiz led a defamatory front against

and its president, now considered a political prisoner of the Giammattei Administration.

According to Font, who was director of the persecuted publication, he assures that the Foundation against terrorism has influence over the Prosecutor's Office headed by the controversial Consuelo Porras.

“This persecution is explained in the Foundation against Terrorism, an organization that in general terms uses terrorist practices to attack the democratic system and impose its political version on things.

The leaders of this organization, who are already included in the Engel list for anti-democratic practices, have clearly said, as Ricardo Mendez Ruiz has done, that it is necessary to get rid of the referents of journalism in Guatemala.

That referents like José Rubén and I must disappear”, says Font.

“He says that the referents must be new.

Of course, more oriented towards his ideological vision, that he is right-wing, very conservative and anti-human rights during the war process.

And they also identify the fight against corruption as an 'agenda of the left', although in general many people on the right are against corruption in Guatemala as well.

The thing is that this man instrumentalizes the Prosecutor's Office of Consuelo Porras, especially the prosecutor's office where Mr. Curruchiche is."

Given his age, says José Zamora, his father should face any legal process at home.

However, until this Monday the judicial decision will be known in this regard.

Meanwhile, the outrage over the arrest of the director of

has spread in the Guatemalan and Central American union, who warn that the sectors represented by Giammattei compare that country to the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Nicaragua, where the exercise of journalism is criminalized. .

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