“There’s a strong terror taking hold in Guatemala”
Julie López writes in El Faro English about the terrorism currently being directed against independent members of the Guatemala judiciary, and especially, against judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez, who was recently forced into exile.
On Tuesday, November 1, a photograph of Guatemalan judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez appeared on social media alongside seven others as part of a macabre and menacing bingo card — a fraction of the roughly thirty prosecutors, judges and independent journalists who have been imprisoned or forced into exile by the Guatemalan state this year. All of their faces, including Gálvez’s, were marked with a red “X.”
The threatening image was published by an influential group of right-wing operatives with ties to former military officers and Guatemala’s economic elite, known as the Foundation Against Terrorism (FCT). The caption read: “This is how the legal snipers of the @FCTGuatemala do our work: one judicial shot, one civil death. This is how we combat […] the globalist agenda against Guatemala. Just a few more to go…”
It is because of accusations filed by the FCT that Gálvez, before he resigned from his position on Tuesday, was facing impeachment proceedings that threatened to repeal his immunity and send him to prison. The FCT is also responsible for leveling similar complaints against several former officials from the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity (FECI), which resulted in the imprisonment of Virginia Laparra and Siomara Sosa, as well as Leily Santizo, the former head of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). The president of the FCT, Ricardo Méndez Ruiz — a self-described “ultra-right activist” who has bragged about his inclusion on the Engel List, the United States’ catalog of corrupt Central American officials — tweeted on November 1: “4 days left for the corrupt judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez to leave Guatemala.”
You can read the full piece, with links and photos, here, Death Squad Dossier Judge Recounts His Fearful Months before Exile.
The original version, in Spanish in El Faro, can be read here, “No se puede quedar uno en Guatemala en estas condiciones”.
The English translation is by Max Granger.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Justice, Legal, Violence
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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