For the first time ever, Reporters Without Borders is publishing a list of profiles of “100 information heroes” for World Press Freedom Day (3 May).Through their courageous work or activism, these “100 heroes” help to promote the freedom enshrined in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the freedom to “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” They put their ideals in the service of...

The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday criticized the recent visit of Guatemalan President Perez Molina to east Jerusalem. PLO Executive Committee member Saeb Erekat expressed “strong dissatisfaction with the response given by the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry regarding complaints made by the State of Palestine on the issue,” according to a statement issued by the PLO. “We will not accept any attempt to legitimize Israel’s occupation policies, particularly in East...

Iran has built an infrastructure of terror in Central and South America in order, among other goals, to target Israelis and Jews there and have a base from which to attack the US, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday. Ya’alon, meeting with Guatemalan President Otto Fernando Perez Molina, himself a former director of military intelligence, warned that Iran, which operates the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah as a proxy, was using diplomatic cover to spread terror in the...

Reporters Without Borders and the CERIGUA Journalists’ Observatory deplore radio programme host Luis de Jesús Lima’s murder yesterday in the Zacapa province. He was the third journalist to be killed in Guatemala since the start of the year. Like the previous two victims - Luis Alberto Lemus Ruano and Jaime Napoleón Jarquín Duarte - Lima was slain in the southeast of the country, a region where criminal violence is on the rise and journalists are increasingly...

In a historic decision, a Guatemalan court convicted former military dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt on 10 May of genocide and crimes against humanity for the massacre, torture, rape and forced displacement of indigenous villagers during counter-insurgency campaigns in the early 1980s. The verdict is unprecedented: never before has a national court found a former head of state guilty of genocide. It sends a powerful message: no one is above the law and everyone - including...

The abrupt suspension of the genocide trial of former de facto head of Guatemala, Efraín Ríos Montt, raises serious concerns about victims’ access to justice, Human Rights Watch said today. On April 18, 2013, as the four-week trial was nearing its conclusion, Judge Carol Patricia Flores - who had been suspended from the case in 2011 and then reinstated by a judgment of the Constitutional Court - ruled that all actions taken in the case in her absence were null and void,...

The Government of Guatemala on Monday announced it has recognition of a Palestinian state, bringing the number of countries that recognized the State of Palestine to 133 countries. The Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations in New York said that it had received from the Permanent Mission of Guatemala to the United Nations a Letter from Fernando Carrera Castro Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, to the Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al Malki in this regard. ...

Day 8 of the Rios Montt genocide trial had ended close to 8 pm with document review and challenges. Day 9 began at 8.30 am on Wednesday, with a plea from defense attorney Cesar Calderon for more “normal” court hours, particularly in light of the advanced ages of the defendants and various other commitments. Judge Barrios responded that the tribunal would take into account the petition, and assured that the late ending the previous day was exceptional. Eleven witnesses on the ninth...

The eighth day of the Rios Montt genocide trial began with a nearly full courtroom in anticipation of testimonies of indigenous women subjected to rape by the Guatemalan military between 1982 and 1983; their supporters attended in large numbers. Before the day’s proceedings began, supporters hung banners outside the courthouse and placed photos of women killed during the years of the armed conflict along an altar of dried flowers, with candles and the word “Justicia,” or...

Reporters Without Borders and the CERIGUA Journalists’ Observatory condemn journalist Jaime Napoleón Jarquín Duarte’s murder on 20 March in Ciudad Pedro de Alvarado, in the southeastern department of Jutiapa. The two partner organizations urge the authorities to carry out a rapid investigation in order to identify those responsible - both the perpetrators and the instigators - and bring them to justice. Jarquín, 63, was playing cards on the street with three...