Spending four Christmases in jail for doing your job. That's what journalist José Rubén Zamora experienced in Guatemala. The Foundation for Justice will present a new video in which he and journalists Carmen Valeria Escobar and Melissa Rabanales will share what it means to report the news in their country today.
Guatemala is a democracy. There are elections, there are laws, and there are judges. But in the last ten years, many people investigating corruption have ended up being persecuted., They are either being tried or forced to flee their country. And what's worse is who is persecuting them: the very institutions that should be protecting them.
A country that wanted to change
According to the journalist Melissa Rabanales, there was a time of hope. The United Nations launched a commission in Guatemala, the CICIG, to help the country investigate corruption. People took to the streets and it seemed that everything was going to change. But Under Jimmy Morales' government, the commission was expelled and there was another setback.
When justice is used to punish
For journalist Carmen Valeria Escobar, people in Guatemala have a name for what is happening: the «Pact of the Corrupt»"It is an alliance between politicians, wealthy individuals, and powerful groups who use state institutions to avoid accountability and to persecute those who denounce corruption.".
Rabanales explains it like this: «In the midst of a democracy, those who initiate this persecution are the institutions that administer justice.»That is, the prosecutors and the judges. Escobar sums it up in one sentence: «In Guatemala, the persecution of journalism doesn’t always begin with explicit censorship. Sometimes it begins in the courts.»
Agents from the Guatemalan prosecutor's office
Four Christmases away from home
José Rubén Zamora fHe buried the newspaper and for years exposed cases of corruption. That work cost him his freedom, and his newspaper had to close.«I spent four Christmases and four birthdays in prison, two of them in total isolation.»"He says in the video. Behind that phrase are years without his family, without his home, and without being able to do his job.".
Leave so we can continue talking
According to Rabanales, in recent years More than 20 journalists from Guatemala have had to leave the country. They are not the only ones. Hundreds of people, including prosecutors, former judges, activists, and human rights defenders, have also left for fear of being charged and brought to trial.
Listen to these voices
At the Foundation for Justice we believe that, Without free journalists, no one can know what is happening or defend themselves against abuses. That's why we want these stories to be known and for these voices not to be silenced.
The video, funded by the Ajuntament de València, can be seen on the Foundation's Instagram profile.