In the genocide trial against retired military commander Benedicto Lucas García, initially expected to end three weeks ago, the defense has attempted to recuse the court to delay sentencing. Last-minute tension is affecting proceedings: A judge is now on medical… Read More ›
Human Rights
Guatemalan AG Wants to Send Jose Rubén Zamora Back to Prison
After spending more than two years in prison in a corrupt judicial process, Guatemala’s most prominent newspaperman was released on house arrest pending retrial. But a Guatemalan court, at the request of AG Consuelo Porras, wants to send Zamora back… Read More ›
GHRC – El Quetzal
The Winter 2024 edition of El Quetzal, from The Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC), has recently been published. It features an interview with Juan Francisco Sandoval, who was the head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) from 2015… Read More ›
Ixil Genocide Trial Against Benedicto Lucas García Nears End
Eleven years after the genocide trial of ex-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, that of General Benedicto Lucas García, a former chief of the General Staff, began this April. In over 85 hearings, witnesses, victims, and experts have testified about the scorched-earth… Read More ›
Ixil Dignity
Víctor Peña presented this photo essay in Spanish in March 2019, in El Faro. It is now translated in the lead-up to the verdict in the trial of retired Guatemalan General Benedicto Lucas García on the charge of genocide against… Read More ›
International organizations demand due process guarantees at key hearing for Jose Rubén Zamora’s release
The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) was a signatory, among many others, of a Joint Statement demanding due process at the review of journalist Jose Rubén Zamora’s detention. 19 international civil society organisations demand due process at the review… Read More ›
The Forgotten Midwives of Chiquimula
Víctor Peña presents a photo-reportage, in El Faro, on the malnutrition crisis affecting Guatemala and, more particularly, the department of Chiquimula. Brenda and her three children walk through the mountains to the community kitchen. Chon climbs a hill carrying a… Read More ›
The Voices Of Those Who Live Among Mountains
Resistance Of The Communities Of Guatemala Against Dispossession “We are Ral Ch’och, that is to say: we were born, we live and we are on our lands. We cannot go anywhere else other than our own.” Pascual Miranda, Río Cristalino… Read More ›
Guatemalan Women Fought for Democracy. Now They Have to Make It Work for Them.
Laura Carlsen writes in Z about the mobilisation of Indigenous people in defence of democracy, and the role of Indigenous women within that struggle. After the election of Bernardo Arévalo, the corrupt elites tried to turn back the clock and… Read More ›
Arrests Shed Light on Abuse of Women in Guatemala’s Prisons
“The problem that we have is a penitentiary system that’s out of control, in which many of the guards are involved” Lara Loaiza writes in InSightCrime on the situation of women within the Guatemala carceral system. Corruption and criminality are… Read More ›
Guatemala Solidarity Network 