Image from the Sepur Zarco trial taken by Nelton Rivera On Monday, February 1, the landmark Sepur Zarco trial opened in Guatemala City before High-Risk Court A. It is first time that a case of sexual violence related to Guatemala’s… Read More ›
Violence
Arrests suggest crimes of the past will not be forgotten
Further to this recent post on this blog, the Guatemala Trials website speaks of the arrest of 18 former military officers in relation to crimes committed during Guatemala’s 36-year conflict. According to Sophie Beaudoin, here, “the dramatic arrests came as… Read More ›
NGOs condemn Canadian ruling that mining case be heard in Guatemala
Canadian and U.S. organisations condemn judge’s ruling that a lawsuit against Vancouver-based mining company Tahoe Resources must be heard in Guatemala, not Canada. Six plaintiffs allege that security personnel attacked protesters in 2013 with rubber bullets at the Tahoe Resources-owned… Read More ›
UN Report on Central American Women’s Plight to Flee Violence
A new UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report, Women on the Run, reveals why women are fleeing violence in Central America and Mexico and the obstacles they in face in their journey to be safe. Based upon in-depth interviews with 160… Read More ›
Guatemalan activist murdered after court suspends palm oil company operations
A palm oil company remains at the heart of conflict in northern Guatemala, months after a mass fish die-off. A day after company operations were suspended pending further investigation into the incident, three community leaders were abducted and threatened by… Read More ›
Lynchings and the Politics of Inequality
On May 20th, 2015, a sixteen-year-old girl was captured, beaten and, while bystanders watched passively, burned alive. She died. The brutality of the crime assured that, even from a remote corner of the world, international news outlets would run the… Read More ›
Rising attacks against journalists in Guatemala cause concern for press advocates
In the first six months of 2015 alone, there were 59 documented attacks against journalists in Guatemala, according to a report released last week by the Observatory for Journalists of the Center for Informative Reports about Guatemala (CERIGUA for its… Read More ›
Forensic science in search of the ‘disappeared’
“During Guatemala’s internal armed conflict (1960-1996) almost 200,000 people are thought to have been killed or ‘disappeared’ at the hands of repressive and violent regimes. Those lives matter. Their families’ demands are clear: they want to know what happened to… Read More ›
‘El Eco del Dolor de Mucha Gente (The Echo of Pain of the Many)’
“For over 30 years, members of the Cuevas family have been campaigning for justice for our son and brother Carlos, disappeared in 1984, and our sister-in-law Rosario Godoy de Cuevas and their family, abducted and murdered at the hands of… Read More ›
Dam protests met with repression in Ixil region of Guatemala
This video footage compiled by Guatevision includes a selection of brief clips showing some of the protests and state response. On April 28th, a massive contingent of police was sent into the Ixil triangle in Guatemala to evict a road… Read More ›
Guatemala Solidarity Network 