Indigenous peoples’ support for the election of Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo in 2023 and through his inauguration in January 2024 was vital in preventing efforts to block him from taking office.
As a candidate, Arévalo had expressed the importance of improving conditions for practicing journalism. And after his inauguration, he pledged to a mission from the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that his government “would not use tools to criminally prosecute the press.”
Community journalism, represented largely by community radio stations that are often tied to ancestral peoples, saw in this promise a path toward change after years of constant criminalization.
However, a year and a half into his administration, “there has not been sufficient progress on freedom of expression that translates into tangible results,” according to the report Community Journalism in Guatemala, produced by eight international organizations: Artículo 19 from Mexico and Central America, Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP), Free Press Unlimited, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, Protection International Mesoamerica, DEMOS Central American Institute for Social Democracy, and the CPJ.
According to the report, this situation “complicates the outlook for community journalism, which remains marginalized, compared to other forms of journalism, from state support.”
“Yes, we did have hope with this government, and at first it showed quite a bit of openness” Anselmo Xunic, director of the Ixchel community station and president of the Movement of Indigenous Community Radios of Guatemala, told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “But we understand this system of government has its hands tied because it’s been co-opted by different agencies, especially the courts, and Congress itself, which is not aligned with this government.”
Spurred by constant threats to freedom of expression during Guatemala’s pre-electoral period in 2023, the same eight organizations traveled to the country to assess the situation. They found that community journalism was particularly “invisible,” Frida Arreola, a researcher on Protection and Civic Space for Artículo 19 from Mexico and Central America, told LJR.
Community journalism is understood as journalism that belongs to the community and serves collective purposes, such as cultural preservation and amplifying marginalized voices, Arreola explained. And although community journalism is not exclusively Indigenous, these ancestral peoples are recognized as its birthplace, Arreola said. For this reason, its invisibility is even more serious, since a little more than half of Guatemala’s population identifies as Indigenous.
Researchers talk to community journalists in the municipality of Cobán, state of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. (Photo: Benjamín Sagüi)
Nearly a year after the new government took office, the same organizations returned to the country to document the violence, obstacles and other issues affecting this type of journalism, according to the report. Between October 2024 and January 2025, researchers conducted interviews with community media and journalists from different regions.
“We identified that community journalism — whether Indigenous or not — actually experiences similar patterns of aggression, such as criminalization, threats, smear campaigns, censorship, acts of intimidation and harassment,” Arreola said.
Transnational corporations, often colluding with local authorities and even organized crime, are most often the aggressors against community journalism, she said. Extractive industries in particular are responsible for criminalizing and discrediting the work of community journalists.
“First, they dispossess Indigenous peoples of their lands, and then they criminalize the work of community journalists, because it is the community journalists who expose the impacts of these projects in these areas,” Arreola said.
The investigations carried out by these journalists, she added, are not only about environmental impacts, but also about “the fragmentation they have caused in the social fabric of their communities.”
These aggressions have greater scope and repercussions due to the lack of public policies that recognize the work of community journalism and the particular challenges that community journalists face, Arreola said.
Although there have been attempts to pass laws focused on protecting journalism in general — with a gender perspective, an intersectional lens and cultural relevance, including community journalism — these have not gotten support in Congress.
Community radio stations in general, and Indigenous stations in particular, illustrate the consequences of a lack of recognition.
In fact, one public policy that Guatemala is obligated to implement stems from a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court) regarding community radio stations. In 2021, the court found the Guatemalan state responsible for violating the rights to freedom of expression, equality, and participation in the cultural life of four Indigenous peoples: the Maya Kaqchikel of Sumpango, the Achí of San Miguel Chicaj, the Mam of Cajolá and the Mam of Todos Santos Cuchumatán.
Radio Ixchel of Sumpango, Uqul Tinamit “The Voice of the People” of San Miguel Chicaj, Radio Xob’il Yol Qman Txun of Todos Santos Cuchumatán, and Radio La X Musical of Cajolá presented their case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) over their constant criminalization. From 2008 to 2015, at least 13 raids were carried out on 12 community radio stations in the country. Authorities also cut off electricity, seized equipment, and arrested employees and volunteers who faced charges of “theft” and “illegal use of frequencies.”
Xunic himself, now director of Radio Ixchel and then a volunteer at the station, was subjected to criminal proceedings for the alleged crime of theft for “operating a community radio station without a license.”
This “historic ruling,” as journalist Yamanik Cholotío of the Guatemalan Federation of Radio Schools (FGER) called it, has seen little progress. While the state accepted the ruling, it has only complied with the financial reparations to the four stations that filed the complaint, she told LJR.
“Since the ruling was issued, we have been insisting on its implementation,” Xunic said. “Some of the most essential points of the ruling have not been complied with, such as the elimination of convictions.”
Indeed, other reparations ordered by the IACHR Court include the elimination of convictions against community radio journalists accused of illegal use of frequencies, translation of the ruling into Mayan languages, and passage of a law that would legalize them.
“To this day, no convictions have been overturned,” Xunic said. In his case, he said, although a judge declared insufficient evidence, which prevented him from being imprisoned, the conviction was never formally overturned, so the case remains open. “So the Public Ministry could continue the investigation.”
Cholotío, from FGER, also said the convictions related to the “illegal” operation of community radios remain in force, even though no journalist is currently imprisoned on those charges.
“There is still a lot of stigma against community journalists, many of whom are peasants, teachers, or have another profession or trade, but during their free time they are also journalists,” Cholotío said.
The lack of a law regulating community radio also creates sustainability problems, Cholotío said. It prevents them from having full-time staff and even from applying for small funding opportunities, she added.
As Xunic noted, Cholotío said not everything is in the hands of the executive branch. The “co-optation” of the other branches of government has prevented this law from moving forward, and that is where some of their efforts are now focused.
From FGER, Cholotío said, they not only want to unite community radio stations but also promote literacy and demand recognition of community journalism.
“We are promoting training schools on community journalism where the presence of the state is nonexistent, as well as continuing to push some legislative initiatives,” Cholotío said.
The development of public policies that promote and sustain community journalism is among the recommendations to the state with which the report concludes. These also include ending stigmatization and harassment, ensuring compliance with the IACHR Court ruling on community radio stations, establishing protection mechanisms for journalism with a community perspective, and publicly supporting the work of community journalists.
