GUATEMALA CITY — The distinguished Guatemalan investigative newspaper “El Periódico” introduced Wednesday that it’s stopping its print version, after the federal government arrested the paper’s president.
José Rubén Zamora was arrested in July and charged with cash laundering and extortion. Zamora has overseen dozens of investigations into corruption throughout his management at El Periódico because the paper was based in 1996.
The entire paper’s reporters have been let go, and it isn’t clear the way it can proceed with digital editions solely. The federal government has withdrawn promoting and has allegedly pressured companies to do the identical.
“It has been 30 years of battle in opposition to corruption and impunity, in opposition to governmental abuses and terrorism, in favor of freedom transparency and accountability,” Zamora wrote in a ultimate editorial, datelined from the jail cell the place he’s being held.
The closure of the print version got here on Guatemala’s “Day of the Journalist.” Guatemala’s chief prosecutor has been criticized by the USA authorities for blocking corruption investigations and as an alternative pursuing the prosecutors and judges who carried them out.
Mario Recinos, president of the Guatemalan Affiliation of Journalists, stated reporters must function “amid limits on the liberty of expression, harassment, criminalization of journalism and judicial persecution.”
Recinos stated 5 Guatemalan journalists have been pressured into exile below the administration of President Alejandro Giammattei due to authorized persecution.
The U.S. authorities has sharply criticized the weakening of anti-corruption efforts in Guatemala and final yr cancelled the U.S. visa of Guatemalan Lawyer Common Consuelo Porras, who had been pursuing former prosecutors who carried out corruption investigations.
Round 30 former anti-corruption officers have fled the nation, and the persecution seems to have prolonged to journalists.
Giammattei has been dismissive of U.S. officers’ criticism of his lawyer common and what they see as Guatemala backsliding on battling corruption. The nation’s new particular prosecutor in opposition to impunity has been positioned on a U.S. record of individuals suspected of corruption or undermining democracy. He’s accused of obstructing corruption investigations.
Zamora has stated the case in opposition to him “is a set-up successfully designed and mounted by the president, lawyer common and different individuals.”
Individually, the Spanish information service EFE introduced Wednesday that one among its correspondents was denied re-entry to Nicaragua after touring to Panama and the USA.
EFE revealed a narrative from Madrid saying Luis Felipe Palacios, a 44-year-old Nicaraguan journalist who has labored for the information company since 2006, was not allowed to board a flight from Miami to Managua on Nov. 21.
Nicaragua Vice President and first girl Rosario Murillo, who can also be the federal government’s spokeswoman, didn’t instantly reply to a request for affirmation.
The federal government of President Daniel Ortega has denied entry to overseas correspondents from different information shops lately. His administration has silenced impartial press shops, driving journalists into exile and taking tv stations off the air. In September, the federal government eliminated CNN’s Spanish broadcast, accusing it of interference and of violating nationwide sovereignty.
In accordance with the press advocacy group Unbiased Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua, no less than 50 native media shops have been closed and greater than 150 journalists have been pressured into exile since 2018, when large avenue protests demanded Ortega step down.