Dec 17 (IPS) – CIVICUS speaks with Ramón Zamora, son of Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora, about restrictions on press freedom and the challenges of defending human rights in Guatemala.
Rubén Zamora is a part of the CIVICUS Stand as My Witness marketing campaign, which seeks the discharge of unjustly imprisoned human rights defenders. The veteran journalist, founding father of Periódico Siglo 21 and famend for his investigations into corruption, has been combating unfounded accusations of cash laundering for over two years. His authorized state of affairs took a flip for the more severe just lately when a courtroom ordered his return to jail after a quick interval of home arrest. As his household ready to attraction, President Bernardo Arévalo denounced the courtroom’s resolution as an assault on freedom of expression.
What was your father’s function in Guatemalan journalism and what led him to antagonise highly effective forces?
My father comes from a household of journalists. His grandfather, Clemente Marroquín, was the founding father of La Hora, some of the necessary newspapers in Guatemalan historical past. In 1990, my father based the media outlet Siglo 21. A transition to democracy was underway and he had understood that democracy couldn’t perform with out actual freedom of expression, that’s, when folks aren’t in a position to specific their concepts with out worry. That’s why it was necessary to have a media outlet that, on high of offering info, additionally included a plurality of voices.
Siglo 21 opened up areas for leftist thought, which earned it threats and assaults from sources linked to the military. As well as, from the outset it handled delicate points, which rapidly put it within the crosshairs of many highly effective figures. Threats and assaults quickly adopted for his investigations into corruption. In 1993, following a coup by then President Jorge Serrano Elías, who suspended the structure and dissolved Congress, the presidential safety service got here searching for my father and the household was pressured into hiding. Nevertheless, my father continued to struggle, publishing a banned version of Siglo 21, which had been censored, and sharing info with worldwide media.
After leaving Siglo 21, he based El Periódico in 1996 and Nuestro Diario in 1998, at all times with the goal of constant to analyze corruption. His investigations led to the jailing of a number of highly effective folks. Over time he suffered arbitrary therapy, assassination makes an attempt and kidnappings, however he continued his work, till 2022, when he was arbitrarily arrested and sentenced in retaliation for exposing corruption within the authorities of Alejandro Giammattei.
What had been the fees that despatched your father to jail?
He was accused of cash laundering, extortion and affect peddling. It was alleged that he used the newspaper and his entry to authorities sources to acquire privileged info to extort cash from businesspeople and public officers. In line with authorities officers, my father threatened to publish tales within the newspaper if they didn’t comply along with his calls for, and allegedly laundered the cash from these extortions by means of the newspaper.
To grasp the justification for his arrest, we have to think about the broader context of assaults on the newspaper. Since 2013, the newspaper has suffered financial strain and threats from authorities officers, resembling then Vice-president Roxana Baldetti, who known as our purchasers to threaten them with investigations in the event that they continued to help the newspaper with promoting. This lowered the paper’s revenue by greater than half. To get across the strain, my father lastly began accepting donations from individuals who wished to stay nameless. This was one of many causes he was accused of laundering undeclared cash. My father was criminalised for defending freedom of expression and denouncing corruption.
How did your father expertise these years of arbitrary detention?
At first it was very arduous as a result of he was held in a navy jail, in a really small cell, fully remoted from different prisoners. In the identical jail had been folks convicted of corruption due to the reporting he had printed, which put him in nice hazard. He quickly began receiving fixed threats.
Within the first few days, his cell was searched a number of occasions, and bedbugs discovered their means into his mattress, inflicting extreme bites throughout his physique. He was unable to sleep due to the fixed noise, as there was building occurring subsequent to his cell. It was all very anxious, each bodily and emotionally. There have been occasions when he thought he would by no means get out alive. To make issues worse, we had been usually denied authorisation to enter the jail or given ridiculous excuses, which stored him in a continuing state of uncertainty.
He additionally suffered tremendously throughout courtroom hearings. There was one decide who went out of his approach to forestall him gaining access to a correct defence. We needed to change legal professionals a number of occasions and plenty of of them had been persecuted for defending my father.
My brother and I labored to maintain the newspaper afloat, despite the fact that a number of journalists had been pressured into exile. Just a few months in the past we managed to get my father launched to deal with arrest, however his case continued to be filled with irregularities and a month later the good thing about home arrest was lifted. We’re nonetheless ready for the appeals courtroom to overview the choice, however it’s seemingly he should return to jail this week or subsequent. My father continues to be combating for his freedom and a good trial to show his innocence.
How can the worldwide group assist?
The worldwide group has performed a vital function in the entire course of. We had been in a position to get my father out of jail largely due to strain from organisations resembling Amnesty Worldwide, CIVICUS, the Committee to Defend Journalists, Freedom Home, Reporters With out Borders and others who spoke out and mobilised.
As a household, we’ve at all times felt supported. We are actually awaiting the decision of the amparo attraction – a petition to guard constitutional rights, which may permit my father to proceed his wrestle from residence. This is able to be perfect, though we’re nonetheless awaiting a last resolution.
The worldwide group should proceed to defend human rights and freedom of expression and help the media, significantly in international locations the place corruption and impunity prevail.
See additionally
Guatemala: ‘Corrupt elites see defenders of justice as a risk to their pursuits and attempt to silence them’ Interview with Virginia Laparra 30.Aug.2024
Guatemala: ‘Disregard for the need of the folks expressed on the poll field is the best potential insult to democracy’ Interview with Jorge Santos 13.Jan.2023
Guatemala: ‘Our democracy is in danger within the fingers of political-criminal networks’ Interview with Evelyn Recinos Contreras 04.Jul.2023
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