Miami (November 26, 2013)—Threats to and harassment of the editor of the Guatemalan newspaper El Quetzalteco, César Pérez, in apparent reprisal for his paper’s editorial stance, brought a sharp rebuke today from the Inter American Press Association, which urged the authorities to determine their origin and act to ensure his and his family’s safety.
El Quetzalteco received public support from the newspaper Prensa Libre, which it belongs to, and its editor, Miguel Ángel Méndez Zetina, who brought the threats and persecution Pérez has been undergoing to the attention of the IAPA. These were said to be linked to the news coverage of corruption in Quetzaltenango, the Central American country’s second largest city and where the newspaper circulates.
Pérez has received threatening phone calls and text messages in which he has been warned to stop publishing information “that has nothing to do with him.” He has also complained that his accusers are aware of his movements and they follow him when he travels around the city. This harassment has been denounced at the Attorney General’s Office, with Pérez also seeking police protection and precautionary measures by the country’s Human Rights Office.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Claudio Paolillo, said that the IAPA “offers its solidarity with the journalist and has called for a prompt investigation into the case.” Paolillo, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Búsqueda, expressed concern at “the symptoms of deterioration of press freedom being noted in Guatemala, which the government ought to deal with urgently in order to prevent greater risks.”
In this regard Paolillo recalled other serious incidents concerning press freedom, such as government persecution of the newspaper elPeriódico for its editorial stance and denunciation of government corruption, which has been seen in threats against its editor, José Rubén Zamora, and the withdrawal of official advertising on the orders of the nation’s president and vice president, who also are understood to have instigated a boycott of the newspaper by advertisers in the private sector.
Zamora also reported being the victim of legal harassment on the part of officials and dependencies of the executive branch of government.
Two journalists have been murdered in Guatemala this year because of their work – Carlos Alberto Orellana from Suchitpéquez on August 19 and Luis de Jesús Lima from Zacapa on August 6, as recorded by the IAPA in its latest press freedom report.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
