Luis Ángel Sas, an investigative journalist for elPeriódico, reported receiving death threats that made reference to his recent reports on Guatemalan military weapons that ended up in the hands of the Mexico-based criminal group Los Zetas, Cerigua reports. Sas – whose beat is drug trafficking, corruption, and crime – told Noticieros Televisa that he first received threats at the offices of elPeriódico while he was at an investigating organized crime conference in Panama. A recent report by a Guatemalan freedom of expression group called drug trafficking groups like Los Zetas one of the biggest threats to journalism
Drug trafficking and transnational organized crime are the among the new threats that Guatemalan journalists are facing, according to study on freedom of expression in the country, EFE reports.
Thirty years after Guatemalan journalist, writer and activist Alaíde Foppa was kidnapped, her family and journalism and human rights organizations on Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010, went before Guatemala's Supreme Court to demand authorities investigate what happened to Foppa, according to IFEX. The family presented a statement to the court to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25.
Marvin del Cid Acevedo, part of the investigative team for the Guatemalan newspaper elPeriódico, had his home broken into for a second time, and his laptop, where he stores all the documents associated with his journalistic work, was stolen, reported Cerigua.
Police found 27 bullet casings outside the home of Edín Maas Bol, whose family of reporters in the central Guatemalan city of Cobán, Alta Verapaz, have suffered three previous attacks, including the killing of his brother, reported Prensa Libre and Cobán Noticioso.
The vice president of Guatemala, Rafael Espada, tried to sue Marta Yolanda Díaz-Durán for libel, insult and defamation after she wrote a column published a year ago in the newspaper Siglo Veintiuno, but the Constitutional Court this week dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the journalist only expressed her opinion in the media, reported Cerigua.
Female voices rarely appear -- as sources or journalists -- in Guatemalan media, which use women only for advertising or marketing purposes, said Alva Batres, coordinator of the Presidential Secretary for Women (SEPREM) in the department of Izabal, reported Cerigua.
The government of Álvaro Colom has denounced a supposed plot to destabilize the country by various groups who are supported by "biased media" that "sell their pens to the highest bidder,” reported Siglo XXI and EFE.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has released its 2010 survey of journalists living in exile.
In the newspaper elPeriodico, columnist Dina Fernandez criticized journalists for still accepting bribes, and chastised the journalists' guild for remaining silent when it comes to corruption within the press.
Guatedigital brought the news that Aníbal Archila, a reporter for Noti7 TV, was declared missing Thursday night (May 27) after being hit and injured by volcanic debris while covering the eruption south of Guatemala City, EFE says. His body was later discovered, and his shaken colleagues announced Archila's death live on the air. (See these videos on the CNN and LA Observed sites.)
On a week of nonstop aggressions and attacks against journalists in Latin America, this news post from journalist Martin Angel Tax alerts us to the shooting Thursday evening of Luis Felipe Valenzuela, director of the Emisoras Unidas radio network.