A new period of violence against freedom of the press has begun in Guatemala, said the UN's special rapporteur for freedom of expression Frank La Rue in an opinion piece denouncing the recent wave of aggressions against journalists in the country.
Guatemalan reporter Carlos Alberto Orellana Chávez was killed on Monday, Aug. 19, in the town of San Bernardino, located in the province of Suchitepéquez, reported Cerigua. Orellana Chávez is the fourth reporter killed in Guatemala this year.
The director of a Guatemalan newspaper accused the government of trying to enter his house on two separate occasions last week, reported Spanish news agency EFE. However, federal officials denied that the agents had the intention of entering his home or intimidating him.
Guatemalan journalist and radio host Luis Lima was killed in the early morning of Tuesday, Aug. 6 in front of his radio station in the province of Zacapa, on the southeast side of the country, newspaper El País reported.
Ten investigative media platforms from Latin America combined forces to create ALiados, a network to strengthen mutual cooperation and find new ways to sustain independent journalism.
The news websites El Faro de El Salvador, Plaza Pública de Guatemala and Confidencial de Nicaragua are working on creating a consortium of Central American digital media outlets to cover the region.
Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina signed the document establishing the Program to Protect Journalists, which will be preventative in nature and follows similar examples in Mexico and Colombia.
On April 8, El Periódico, one of the principal independent newspapers in Guatemala, published an extensive and unflattering portrait of Vice President Roxana Baldetti.
Guatemalan journalist Luis Alberto Lemus Ruano was shot dead on Sunday, April 7, in the department of Jutiapa, near the Salvadoran border, reported the Guatemalan Information Centre.
A Guatemalan reporter has been summoned to reveal her source before the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, said the newspaper La Hora.
A journalist in Guatemala was gunned down and killed in the south of the country, AFP reported. Unknown men shot Jaime Jarquín, correspondent for newspaper Nuestro Diario, while he chatted with three friends at a store in the city of Pedro de Álvaro, near the border with El Salvador
Guatemalan journalist Héctor Cordero is known for three things: for being the only full-time journalist covering the department of El Quiché for a national TV newscast, for his relentless reports on corruption and abuse of authority, and for regularly angering public officials in the region. In the current struggle over political power in El Quiché, Cordero has become an extremely bothersome figure for the department's ruling class.