“People have confidence in journalism. With my work I have wanted to honor journalists who gave their lives for a free society.”
An interview with José Rubén Zamora was carried out by Carlos F. Chamorro of Confidencial and was translated into English and posted in the Havana Times. Thanks also to Rights Action.
In the interview he talks about, amongst other things, how he survived the solitude while in prison, about the cruelty of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Ministerio Público – MP), the raft of allegations against him, and the Foundation Against Terrorism (Fundación Contra el Terrorismo – FCT).
After spending 1,295 days in the Mariscal Zavala prison, journalist Jose Ruben “Chepe” Zamora, founder of elPeriodico in Guatemala, now under house arrest, is fighting—at a disadvantage—the final battle for his definitive freedom.
“I have asked the Guatemalan State to offer me a public apology. It is something qualitative that would repair me: that before the Judiciary, the Executive recognizes that my persecution was arbitrary and illegal, and that I was subjected to torture. With that recognition it will be much harder for them to keep crushing me,” Zamora states.
He knows that the Public Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Attorney General Consuelo Porras, can send him back to prison at any moment, although it no longer has the same power it did four years ago. He hopes that both the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Constitutional Court will “get some oxygen” with the new appointments expected in the coming months.
The journalist and businessman—whose newspaper elPeriódico was shut down during this latest imprisonment—acknowledges that his prison conditions improved after Bernardo Arévalo became president two years ago. He describes the president as “a decent man” whose legacy of respecting the law and the Constitution is producing some changes that will be better valued later in Guatemala.
However, he insists: “For us to make a permanent change in the balance of forces, we need to refound Guatemala—a viable Guatemala that stops being captured by organized crime and other de facto powers, by military powers, by the high command, by (economic) groups that finance electoral campaigns.”
You can read the full interview (English translation) here, Jose Ruben Zamora: “We Need to Refound Guatemala” and the original, in Spanish, here, José Rubén Zamora: “necesitamos refundar Guatemala, libre del crimen organizado y los poderes fácticos”.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Criminalization, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Justice, Solidarity in Action, Solidarity in Action/Guatemala
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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