OAS » IACHR » Special Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression » Guatemala

Freedom of Expression

Guatemala

Aggression and threats

 

131.     On February 1, 2002, several public prosecutors, staff members of the Criminal Investigations Service (SIC) and 10 members of the National Civil Police raided the administrative office of Carlos Victor Hugo Hernandez Rivas, the director of radio programs on Radio La Voz de Heuhuetenango and Radio Santa Fe.  Mr. Hernandez alleges that the officials forced their way into the office outside of the authorized hours for such raids and without a warrant, in order to search his files.[i]

 

132.  On February 5, 2002, a group of armed men threatened Arnulfo Augustin, Guzman, general director of Radio Sonora, and attempted to kidnap him outside of the radio station.  The men fled at the sight of a security guard, but shot at the victim's vehicle.[ii]

 

133.  On February 6, Deccio Serano, a photographer with the newspaper Nuestro Diario, and other members of the press were attacked by members of the Municipal Traffic Police (Emetra).  The agents filmed the journalists as they arrived to cover a traffic dispute.[iii]  On the same day, Jose Candido Barrillas, director of the Commission on Freedom of the Press of the Association of Journalists of Guatemala (Comisión de Libertad de la Prensa de la Asociación de Periodistas de Guatemala, APG), was assaulted, forced into a car at gunpoint and later released.[iv]  Also on February 6, journalists Ana Lucia Ramirez and journalist Nery de la Cruz, of Radio Sonora, were attacked in two separate incidents.[v]

 

134.  In April 2002, freelance journalist David Herrera was abducted by unknown persons as he was investigating the disinterment of clandestine graves.  According to the information received, the abductors threatened to kill him and asked him for “the material,” which he assumed referred to recordings of interviews taped the previous day.  The journalist escaped from his abductors and felt it was necessary to go into exile.[vi]

 

135.  On June 7, 2002, Abner Gouz, of the newspaper El Periódico, Rosa María Bolaños, of the newspaper Siglo XXI, Ronaldo Robles and Marielos Monzón, of radio station Emisoras Unidas, as well as seven members of organizations for the defense of human rights, were threatened with death.  In an anonymous message to the organization "Alliance against Impunity," and to several news media organizations, a group identifying itself as "los guatemaltecos de verdad" [real Guatemalans] called them “enemies of the country,” and threatened to “exterminate” them.[vii]  The IACHR issued a press release strongly expressing its concern over the growing number of violent and intimidating acts perpetrated against defenders of human rights and journalists.[viii]

 

136.  On July 7, 2002, Adrián Zapata, a columnist with Siglo XXI, received a call at his home from someone identifying himself as a member of “organized crime” and warning him that he would be killed.[ix]

 

137.  In August 2002, the anthropologist Victoria Sandfor, of the Catholic University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and journalists David González and Wesley Boxed, of the U.S. newspaper the New York Times, received death threats from el Kaibil (an elite counterinsurgency corps of the Valentin Chen Gómez Army), as they were investigating the disinterment of graves in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz.  The journalists accompanied the investigation team to the excavations being conducted by the Asociación para el Desarrollo Integral de las Víctimas de la Violencia Maya Achí (Adivima) in a clandestine burial site located in the Instituto Experimental (Ineba) of the aforementioned municipality, where more than 600 persons massacred in 1981 had been buried by the army and paramilitary groups.[x]

 

Access to information

 

138.  In July 2002, the Legislation Committee of the Congress issued a favorable opinion on a bill concerning access to information and habeas data prepared by the Strategic Alliance Department (SAE).  The bill was assigned No. 2594 and was referred to the full Congress for discussion.  In October 2002, upon second reading, the Congress approved the body of the law.  To enter into force, the law must be approved after a third reading article-by-article for final revisions and then sent to the Executive Branch for signature.  Once signed, it must be published in the official journal.[xi]  The Association of Guatemalan Journalists (APG) and others organizations have criticized the law for failure to take civil society opinions into account.

 

Other

 

139.  In January 2002, the Superintendency of Telecommunications (SIT) announced that it was reinitiating a call for economic bids on radio frequencies in the country.[xii]  In April, the SIT temporarily suspended the bidding process, reinitiating it on August 27, 2002 with a call for bids on 13 radio frequencies.[xiii]  According to various civil society groups, this policy could make it difficult for grass-roots entities to gain access to the radio frequencies being auctioned.[xiv]  It should be recalled that Principle 12 of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression provides that “The concession of radio and television broadcast frequencies should take into account democratic criteria that provide equal opportunity of access for all individuals.”

 

140.  In February 2002, a draft Community Radio Broadcasting Act was presented to the Congress.[xv]  The bill recognizes the importance of community radio for “the promotion of national culture, development, and education” in thousands of communities throughout the country.[xvi]  Given the fundamental role of community radio stations in informing society, the objective of the bill is to ensure "that they exercise the right to free expression of thought through the use of radio broadcast frequencies under equal conditions."[xvii]  This bill remains under consideration by Congress.

141.  In September 2002, Government Agreement 316-2002 was issued.  By means of this agreement, the government announced that it would award concessions, free of charge, for nine national and regional radio frequencies to civil society institutions and associations.[xviii]  The Guatemalan Council on Community Communication rejected this agreement, which it considered an obstacle to access by indigenous peoples to available radio frequencies, running counter to the democratic spirit that should characterize the allocation of radio frequencies.[xix]

 

142.  The Office of the Special Rapporteur has received with concern a number of complaints about a campaign to discredit media organizations that criticize the actions of public officials.  Information has also been received alleging that this campaign has been accompanied, inter alia, by decisions to bar access by the press to public events and citations by the Solicitor General of the Nation against journalists to force them to reveal their sources.  This information was received in late 2002.  The Office of the Special Rapporteur will carefully follow developments in this situation.

 

Positive developments

 

143.  The Office of the Special Rapporteur notes with satisfaction that on January 23, 2002, the Constitutional Court provisionally declared the partial unconstitutionality of the Law on Mandatory Membership in Professional Associations (Ley de Colegiacón Profesional Obligatoria).  By decree 72-2001, the Court established that the compulsory character of this legislation applied to all professions, with the exception of journalists.  It should be noted that contrary to the ruling of the Inter-American Court with respect to freedom of expression, the Guatemalan Congress, on November 30, 2001, approved the Law on Mandatory Membership in Professional Associations, requiring that all journalists possess a university degree and be a member of the association of journalists in order to practice their profession.[xx]

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