Veteran Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora, 65, was at home with grandchildren and family on Friday night (29) when police arrived. After more than six hours of keeping everyone inside the residence, the officers took Zamora away, without explaining the reasons.
Meanwhile, the premises of the newspaper of which he is the founder, El Periódico, was undergoing a search and seizure process and its journalists and employees remained detained for more than 12 hours, without receiving food or water, until the police left.
“It’s arbitrary. For 30 years my father has exposed cases of corruption in various governments,” he told Sheet José Carlos Zamora, 45, son of the journalist, who is in Miami. “I am distressed because my wife and small children were there and they went through hours of terror, as well as seeing their grandfather taken away. [pela polícia].”
Zamora is one of the most recognized journalists in the country, having won the Maria Moors Cabot Award, given by Columbia University, for “promoting press freedom and inter-American understanding”. In addition to El Periódico, he founded two other newspapers, Siglo Veintiuno and Nuestro Diario.
The Guatemalan prosecutor’s office says the actions are part of an investigation into suspected money laundering, which Zamora says is a lie. Upon being taken away, the journalist claimed to be a “political prisoner”. The first hearing on the case will be this Monday (1st).
José Carlos, who will travel to Guatemala to accompany the hearings and try to free his father, says he is very concerned about the escalation of persecution of opponents and journalists in the country. “We wouldn’t want to become like Nicaragua, but it looks like we’re going this way.”
Zamora’s arrest is part of a context of dismantling the structures that had turned Guatemala into a successful case in the investigation and punishment of corruption crimes. The Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG), a commission created by the government and with the participation of the United Nations, uncovered several scandals. He worked between 2006 and 2019 and, in 2015, presented evidence of embezzlement by the then president himself, Otto Pérez Molina, who resigned in the midst of an impeachment process and was arrested. In addition to him, the CICIG helped to dismantle 70 corruption structures and made allegations that generated more than 400 arrests.
His successor Jimmy Morales, who took over in 2016, initially supported the body. When his family members began to appear in corruption cases, however, he began to criticize him and then to dismantle the commission, imposing obstacles to its performance and later expelling prosecutors and magistrates who worked with the entity from the country.
In Alejandro Giammattei’s administration, the advance against Justice is even more forceful. In addition to expelling the CICIG completely, the president began the process of dismissing several prosecutors and judges who had been involved in corruption cases — there are more than 30 of them in exile today.
“Now I believe that they are on the next step. After advancing against the courts and dismantling the CICIG, they are silencing the press, because many of the complaints that have been investigated in recent years were fueled by complaints published in my father’s newspaper, who always insisted to remain in investigative journalism at any cost”, says José Carlos.
Hunger strike
José Rubén Zamora had started a hunger strike on Saturday, but on Sunday, his wife visited him in prison and talked him out of the idea. “We don’t know how long this will last. Glad my mother convinced him to eat,” says the journalist’s son. “Our hope is that they will at least release him to answer the case in freedom. But as we all know that this is a political issue, anything can happen. We are very concerned.”
Giammattei’s management is becoming increasingly authoritarian and his advances on state institutions have drawn the attention of international bodies. In June of this year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights added Guatemala to the list of countries that commit serious human rights violations, along with Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
The US State Department, the European Union and the United Nations have also expressed concern about attacks on judges and journalists working on corruption cases who are being persecuted.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for Zamora’s immediate release, while the Inter-American Press Society (IAPA) asked Giammattei for guarantees of press freedom.
José Carlos says that he moved to the USA when, as a teenager, he saw his house being invaded and spent hours kidnapped by parallel militias of the State. He says his father “has no fear and will keep doing what he does”. “It’s a shame that this intimidation action weakens local journalism, but we hope that this prosecution process will stop, with the international attention the case is receiving,” he says.
