GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A Guatemalan judge on Tuesday ordered an investigation into nine Guatemalan journalists and columnists who work — or have worked — at the newspaper El Periódico, at the request of the prosecutor’s office, which complained that publications about actions of justice operators could constitute crimes.
Judge Jimi Bremer instructed, in order to find out whether prosecutors, justice operators, judges, magistrates or any other person who may be the subject of proceedings in a case are harmed by malice, “so that it makes the ‘object of an investigation’.
Among the journalists quoted, who cover the judicial source, the public ministry and who have published anti-corruption investigations, also include the director of the newspaper Julia Corado, the only woman, and the columnist and former foreign minister Edgar Gutiérrez. They have chosen not to comment on what they consider to be a stigmatizing accusation against the media.
Prosecutor Cinthia Monterroso – who is also pursuing another case for which the president of El Periódico, José Rubén Zamora, is imprisoned for money laundering – complained to the magistrate during the hearing, arguing that the media publishes complaints, disciplinary proceedings and questionable decisions by legal actors, including her, and that the sponsors of the publications, as well as the financing of the media, must be investigated.
The president of the Association of Guatemalan Journalists, Mario Recinos, denounced a “regression of freedoms”. The union representative recalled that the constitution establishes that criticism of officials is not a “crime” and “that it also protects the freedom of the press and of opinion”. And he added: “We are on alert, because this reflects what is happening in countries like Nicaragua.”
At the same hearing, the judge bound Zamora to new criminal proceedings, this time for criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Zamora has been detained for more than six months for the crimes of money laundering, influence peddling and blackmail that the prosecution accuses him of. According to the investigative body, the journalist, one of the most critical of Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, allegedly received $38,000 from someone and then asked his friend Rnald García Navarijo, who was being prosecuted for corruption, to file the report. money in a bank.
Zamora’s defense argues that he did not deposit the money into his own account to avoid knowing who the donor was. Zamora said the money was a donation to cover the expenses of the morning newspaper which was going through a financial crisis after the withdrawal of its official advertising.
The donor did not want to be identified. According to relatives of the journalist, various businessmen were harassed and forced not to advertise in the media.
After denouncing Zamora, his friend García Navarijo was freed by the Constitutional Court.
Various national and international news outlets have condemned what they see as a persecution of Zamora and its outlet, which specializes in anti-corruption complaints.