Central America

• BELIZE: ‘Many laws remain that keep LGBTQI+ people as second-class citizens’

  CIVICUS speaks about the situation of LGBTQI+ rights in Belize and the ongoing impacts of the British colonial legacy with Caleb Orozco, the chief litigant in a case successfully challenging Belize’s discriminatory laws and co-founder of the United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM).

  Founded in 2006, UNIBAM was the first LGBTQI+-led policy and advocacy civil rights organisation in Belize. Focused on dismantling systemic and structural violence that impacts on human rights, it uses rights-based approaches to reduce stigma and discrimination.

  What was the process leading to the overturn of Belize’s so-called anti-gay laws?

  The process of overturning the sodomy laws contained in Section 53 of the Criminal Code started with a preliminary assessment that guided the development of the University of the West Indies’ Rights Advocacy Project (URAP) led by Tracy Robinson, whose group initiated my case in 2010. In 2011 we worked with Human Dignity Trust, which joined as interested party, to engage on international treaty obligations.

  In 2007, a conversation started at a meeting in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, organised by the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition. URAP engaged by email and Viper Messenger, with additional regional conferences to flesh out legal arguments. The process identified Lisa Shoman as local Senior Counsel and Chris Hamel Smith, who argued the case in 2013.

  Meanwhile, we submitted reports for Belize’s Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council to test the government’s response to the challenge to the sodomy laws. We also resorted to thematic hearings at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The response of the government was that it needed a ‘political mandate’. We worked with the subcommittee for policy and legislation of the National AIDS Commission to monitor legislative opportunities and gauge the position of the government and the prime minister. We knew the government would not significantly fight the process.

  In late 2010 we filed a challenge to Section 53 and a fight with the group of churches ensued. UNIBAM’s role was eventually reduced to that of an interested party, with the churches relegated to the same role, and I remained as the sole claimant.

  We did not have a communications strategy, so we developed one. Nor did we have a security strategy, but we got help from the Human Dignity Trust. We participated in around 300 media interviews, collectively, over the years. The process included the derailment of the government’s revised national gender policy of 2013, with hundreds protesting across the country. Also, in Jamaica, 25,000 people protested to demand the removal of Professor Brendon Bain, an expert witness in my case in support of the churches, from his job at the University of the West Indies. 

  The case was heard by the Supreme Court in May 2013. We submitted personal experiences of discrimination and tried to strike out the churches, but we failed. Three years later, on 10 August 2016, the judge ruled in our favour, establishing that Section 53 was unconstitutional, which effectively decriminalised consensual same-sex activity held in private by consenting adults.

  The Attorney General launched a partial appeal focused on the freedom of expression and non-discrimination on the grounds of ‘sex’, but the Court of Appeal’s judgment was reaffirmed in December 2019, with the expectation that the sodomy law had to be modified by parliament after the Court reaffirmed its unconstitutionality. Over time, the political tone changed: from claiming a political mandate was needed to change our sodomy law, to supporting 15 out of 17 Universal Periodic Review recommendations on LGBTQI+ rights in 2018. We are now waiting for parliament to modify the law as per the instruction of the Court of Appeal.

  Did you experience backlash?

  I experienced a lot of backlash throughout the process. This included character assassination and death threats, to the point that a personal security plan had to be put in place for me to go to court in 2013 and for my daily movement. Christian TV stations pushed negative propaganda and social media platforms buzzed with homophobia and threats. 

  How much progress has the LGBTQI+ rights movement achieved so far? 

  The LGBTQI+ rights movement became part of a National Working Group, in which I helped draft a cabinet note to advance the Equal Opportunities Bill and Hate Crime Legislation, with support from the Human Dignity Trust. Even though the Equal Opportunities Bill was endorsed by the cabinet, it didn’t reach parliament before the 2020 general election, because the evangelical ‘Kill the Bill’ campaign succeeded in derailing it just in time. We are not giving up in 2022!

  I run the only LGBTQI+-led observatory of human rights in Belize, which provides litigation support to clients. We produce knowledge products on systemic and structural violence that feeds into a national and transnational advocacy framework that includes LGBTQI+ economic inclusion and livelihoods. 

  The process influenced and inspired the development of several niche organisations focused on LGBTQI+ families, health, trans issues and lesbian and bisexual women. It helped launch the global mandate of the Human Dignity Trust’s campaign on decriminalisation. Ours was in fact their first case back in 2011.

  What challenges do LGBTQI+ people continue to face in Belize? How can challenges be addressed?

  There is the denial of gender markers for trans people. Violence against us can take place in the family and the workplace. Kids experience discrimination in schools. In addition, family insecurity for LGBTQI+ parents is a huge deal. We endure economic rights violations and economic exclusion, as well as unequal access to economic benefits such as social security and government pensions. 

  LGBTQI+ Belizeans experience daily deficits in the police’s work that deals with us as victims of violence and detainees. If you’re of African descent and gay, expect police harassment.

  We need resources to advance 20 amendments to laws that exclude LGBTQI+ Belizeans as citizens, which attack our dignity and rights and keep us as second-class citizens. The functions of the Human Rights Observatory, which provides redress to LGBTQI+ Belizeans and marginalised women, should be strengthened.

  What kind of international support does Belizean LGBTQI+ civil society need? 

  International allies can support us with donations through our GoFundMe page. We also really value offers of pro-bono legal support for the work of our Human Rights Observatory, including legal research, legal defence,  protection work, bill drafting, litigation support, and branding strategies, as well as offers of pro bono support to produce investigative or victim advocacy training.

  Civic space in Belize is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with UNIBAMthrough itswebsite and follow@UNIBAMSupport on Twitter.

• BOLIVIA: ‘Civil society, like political society, is deeply divided’
  CIVICUS speaks about the 2019 protests and elections in Bolivia with Eliana Quiroz, Executive Director of Fundación Internet Bolivia (Bolivia Internet Foundation), an organisation dedicated to strengthening free and secure access to the web. In its work to defend online human rights against censorship, surveillance, manipulation, extortion and other harmful practices, the Bolivia Internet Foundation focuses its actions on capacity strengthening among vulnerable publics, the promotion of open discussion spaces and the development of knowledge and technology-based strategies.
• COSTA RICA: ‘Once legal change achieved, public policy should continue to focus on structural exclusion’

  On 26 May 2020, Costa Rica became the first country in Central America to recognise same-sex marriage. CIVICUS speaks with Herman Duarte, a lawyer practising in Costa Rica and El Salvador and the director ofSimple Legal Consulting as well as the Latin America Liaison Officer of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Committee and the founder and president of Foundation Igualitxs. Fundación Igualitxs is a leading think tank working on LGBTQI+ rights in Central America, focused on promoting equal civil marriage across the region. It works towards this goal by conducting strategic litigation at the national and inter-American levels, promoting its ideas in academic circles and partnering with high-level international allies.

  

  What roles have civil society and the government played in the process leading to the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Costa Rica?

  Costa Rica is a constitutional democracy structured as a unitary state with three branches of government – legislative, executive and judicial – that are in principle independent. At least in theory, the principles of the rule of law and equal legal treatment of all citizens are respected. But Costa Rica is also a confessional state: its constitution expressly recognises Catholicism as its official religion. In recent decades, evangelical congregations have expanded in number, reaching nearly 3,800. By 2017, more than 80 per cent of the population identified themselves as Catholic or evangelic; clearly, Costa Rica is culturally a conservative country.

  In the context of a decades-long struggle by the LGBTQI+ rights movement, the kickstart came from the Government of Costa Rica, which in May 2016 asked the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for an advisory opinion regarding the patrimonial rights of same-sex couples. This consultation opened a window for all interested parties to present their arguments, which more than 90 very diverse actors did, including states, international organisations, civil society organisations (CSOs), universities and individuals. Hearings took place on 16 and 17 May 2017 and we took part in them.

  The momentum generated by this event was reflected in the organisation of the First Equal Marriage Congress, held in San José, Costa Rica, in November 2017, which brought together more than 54 speakers from all over the region. In January 2018, the Inter-American Court published its decision, which stated that state parties should regulate the status of non-heterosexual families, opening the doors of civil (non-religious) marriage to same-sex couples. A group of 60 LGBTQI+ organisations in the region celebrated the decision as the most important in the history of LGBTQI+ rights to date.

  At that time great discussion was elicited around whether the opinion of the Inter-American Court was binding for Costa Rica. The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica settled this debate in August 2018, when it argued that the sections of the Family Code that limited civil marriage to heterosexual couples were unconstitutional. The ruling gave the Legislative Assembly 18 months to amend legislation; otherwise, all restrictions would be lifted automatically, and as of 26 May 2020, any couple could marry with no obstacles in Costa Rica. And so it happened, since there was no legislative consensus to create new legislation.

  On the path to the entry into force of the Court's ruling, important civil society campaigns were developed to increase social acceptance to accompany legal change.

  Did you face backlash from anti-rights groups?

  Conservative reaction has been brutal. It is important to understand that the LGBTQI+ community has framed its struggles around the demand for recognition of their human dignity and their equal value as human beings and that religious groups have mobilised as identity groups – groups whose identity is defined in a narrow, not universalistic way, in opposition to an enemy. These groups channelled resentments brought about by legal changes that advanced equality and gave hope to those who had felt displaced by them, leading to the rise of religious political parties.

  In such context, the 2018 presidential elections became some sort of referendum on the rights of LGBTQI+ people, and specifically on equal marriage. An evangelical pastor, Fabricio Alvarado, then the lone congressman from an evangelical party, ran for the presidency, exploiting conservative people’s feelings of outrage and fear at the Supreme Court ruling. The candidate was noted for his incendiary statements; he declared, for example, that homosexuality was “caused by the devil.” This is how he climbed to the top of pre-electoral polls: in just one month, he went from three per cent to 17 per cent of voting preferences, and came first in the first round of the presidential elections, winning 14 of the 54 legislative seats as well. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase in the legislative presence of his political party.

  The runoff presidential election revolved around the rights of the LGBTQI+ population. The runner-up, Carlos Alvarado, was the candidate of the incumbent party and was favourable to LGBTQI+ rights. His position eventually prevailed, but the elections forced us to confront the enormous power achieved by evangelical churches. Carlos Alvarado’s victory can be explained by several factors, one of which was the formidable mobilisation of civil society. Among the civil society campaigns that had an impact was that of the Coalition for Costa Rica, which sought to generate an informed and inclusive debate, disseminating the candidates’ proposals so that citizens could deliberate before voting, and ‘For all families’, a campaign that Igualitxs launched a week before the elections to spread an inclusive message and demand equal treatment for the LGBTQI+ population.

  The deep division created around the elections has had consequences. Politicians who use religion to polarise society continue to abound. They protest because they think that the government is biased towards addressing the problems of the LGBTQI+ population. This tension has increased with the entry into force of equal marriage and the proposal of bills to censor hatred and discriminatory speech.

  Do you think that the legal change has been accompanied by a change in attitudes? What is civil society doing to promote acceptance of LGBTQI+ people?

  Legal change is one thing and cultural change is another. Legal change has offered human rights progress and has been a way to achieve the universal application of the law. It has been the result of a decades-long struggle by the LGBTQI+ community. But there is still homophobia, discrimination and violence against LGBTQI+ people. Once legal change has been achieved, public policy should continue to focus on structural exclusion. Because legal change by itself does not necessarily improve the feeling of belonging to a community. As the political theorist Bikku Parekh explains, while citizenship is a matter of status and rights, membership is achieved when one is accepted and feels welcome. And there is still much to do for this to happen. People’s attitudes do not change automatically just because a law is implemented. The law sets an objective parameter of what is allowed, but much more work needs to be done to modify the parameters of what is considered normal or morally acceptable.

  Therefore, to prepare the ground for legal change, in the 18 months between the publication of the Supreme Court ruling and the entry into force of the decision, more than 35 local CSOs developed the ‘Yes, I accept’ campaign, calling for recognition of the equal dignity of all human beings. This campaign was accompanied by the media, by companies that are part of the advertising union, unions such as the Business Development Association, the United Nations and embassies such as those of Canada and the Netherlands.

  The campaign featured testimonies from LGBTQI+ individuals, couples and families, as well as their relatives, neighbours and friends, with the aim of promoting acceptance and changing perceptions of what it means to be an LBGTQI+ person in Costa Rican society. It was activated nationwide, with videos that were broadcast for months not only on social media but also on national television. It is the best campaign that has ever been developed on the subject, and we owe it to Mrs Nisa Sanz, president of the CSO Familias Homoparentales, and Gia Miranda, the campaign’s official spokesperson.

  The videos appeal to emotion and generate empathy. They led thousands of people who were not politically involved to give up their sacred right to privacy and stand up to exist as a reality rather than an abstraction. It put a human face on the abstract idea of ‘gays’, as presented by newspapers. By telling people that they would not be rejected, it created the conditions for them to lose their fear, since most LGBTQI+ people suffer some type of rejection in their daily lives, regardless of their social status. As a result, an active citizenry took part in the campaign, making it known that with or without a pandemic it would not take a step back from ground that had been won. This was decisive in making legislators who were trying to sabotage equal civil marriage understand that it would not be possible for them to stop it.

  This was one of the most important civil rights campaigns in history, and will remain in memory as a light that shone amid the darkness of the pandemic. Just one day before access to civil marriage took effect for all adults in Costa Rica, the Catholic Bishop of Alajuela delivered a message that said: “We are glad that there are different types of human relationships, different ways of being a family, and I think that where there is a demonstration of affection and family love, in a way God manifests himself, and we have to favour this.” Although not necessarily reflecting the position of the entire institution, the words of this religious representative were the result of the excellent work done by activists to achieve the cultural change that was necessary to gain acceptance of LGBTQI+ people.

  It is remarkable how Costa Rica went from criminalising homosexuality in the 1970s and closing gay bars deemed to be ‘perverse’ and persecuting gays with raids under the pretence of public health in the 1980s, to requesting an advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court in 2016 and, after a presidential election focused on the issue, appointing a presidential commissioner for LGBTQI+ affairs in 2018 and recognising equal marriage two years later.

  We have just left behind another unjust law. And many people have understood that the fact that the union and life plans of two same-sex adults receive legal protection does not affect them in any way – if anything, it validates the institution of marriage in which they are also part – and that there is nothing wrong with being gay, and in any case no one ‘becomes gay’ as a result of this normalisation.

   

  What is the regional significance of the progress achieved in Costa Rica?

  Central America is one of the most hostile regions in Latin America for LGBTQI+ people. Murders of homosexual and trans people are frequent in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Costa Rica, as the first Central American country to approve equal marriage, should be a model for the entire region. The advisory opinion of the Inter-American Court is valid for the 20 countries of the Americas that recognise its jurisdiction. Panama could soon follow the path of Costa Rica: an unconstitutionality demand based on the ruling of the Inter-American Court has been filed, and the Iguales Panamá Foundation is coordinating the participation of international and domestic civil society in the process that is taking in Panama’s Supreme Court.

  The Igualitxs Foundation has also long been working along the same lines in El Salvador, my country of origin. Salvadoran civil society has made immense progress. Based on the regressive leanings of the Legislative Assembly regarding equal civil marriage, for a decade and a half our efforts have focused on filing demands for the restrictive articles of the Family Code to be declared unconstitutional. I filed one of those lawsuits, titled Equality Lawsuit, on 11 November 2016. Shortly afterwards, several CSOs, such as Asociación Entre Amigos, Comcavis and Hombres Trans El Salvador, as well as numerous independent activists, filed a similar lawsuit.

  As in Costa Rica, conservative sectors reacted strongly. In the Legislative Assembly they rushed to start the ratification process of an exclusionary constitutional reform that had been stagnant for years, and that would give constitutional status to the restrictive definition of marriage that we were questioning in the Family Code, which would effectively ban same-sex marriage. In the face of this, we requested a precautionary measure against the constitutional reform process and got the Supreme Court to stop it. It was as a result of this demand that the Igualitos movement was created, which would later become the Igualitxs Foundation.

  The two unconstitutionality demands filed in 2016 were eventually admitted in August 2019, and in January 2020 a justice of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court announced that the court would shortly rule on this issue, and admitted that this is one of the court’s major outstanding overdue decisions. So we may be close to achieving our goal.

  What support does civil society advocating for LGBTQI+ rights need from international civil society?

  In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation is becoming increasingly difficult. States have their resources committed to fighting the pandemic, CSOs face budgetary constraints and the crisis is affecting everyone. In addition, many people are turning to faith to cope with the crisis and some religious groups are taking advantage and launching campaigns against LGBTQI+ people. However, it is still possible to take substantial measures and actions such as, in El Salvador, the approval of a bill that dozens of organisations are pushing for that would provide recognition to human rights defenders.

  With regard specifically to our organisation, which has no funding and is entirely based on volunteering, we are taking it one day at a time, to regain the control that we have lost due to the pandemic. I think it is time to ask ourselves not only what we want and can get from life, but also what we can give back. This way we enter a zone of power, in which we retain agency despite limitations. Thus we leave our comfort zone to enter a growth zone. Starting from the acceptance of our reality, we need to do deep introspection to reinvent ourselves. This is the time to go back to believing that all of us have the potential to do great things and leave a mark if we act not to obtain flattery and gain popularity, but out of the satisfaction that comes from doing what is right and just, achieving positive impact in the world.

  Civic space in Costa Rica is rated as ‘open’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Let in touch with Fundación Igualitxs through itswebsite andFacebook page.

   

• Countries on CIVICUS Monitor watchlist presented to UN Human Rights Council

  Statement at the 48th Session of the UN Human Rights Council

  Delivered by Lisa Majumdar

  Thank you, Madame President.

  A number of countries have experienced serious and rapid decline in respect for civic freedoms in the last months. We call upon the Council to do everything in their power to immediately end the ongoing civic space crackdowns which are a foreshadowing of worse violations to come.

  In Afghanistan, against a backdrop of deepening human rights, humanitarian and economic crisis, activists face systematic intimidation and are at grave risk. The Taliban are carrying out house-to-house searches for activists and journalists, and have responded with excessive force, gunfire and beatings to disperse peaceful protests, leading to deaths and injuries of peaceful protesters. The Council previously failed to take swift action to establish a monitoring and accountability mechanism. We urge it to remedy this missed opportunity now.

  In Belarus, attacks on human rights defenders and independent journalists have intensified, against the backdrop of recent draconian changes to the Mass Media Law and to the Law on Mass Events which were adopted in May 2021. We call on the Council to ensure that arbitrarily detained human rights defenders are released, and perpetrators of violations are held to account.

  Since the end of May, Nicaragua’s authorities have carried out a further crackdown on civil society and the opposition. Dozens of political leaders and human rights defenders were arrested and prosecuted as the government acted to silence critics and opponents ahead of presidential elections in November, a context which renders free and fair elections impossible. It is essential that the Council escalates its international scrutiny of Nicaragua to further accountability and justice for crimes under international law.

  We thank you.

  Civic space in Afghanistan, Belarus and Nicaragua is rated as repressed by the CIVICUS Monitor 

• EL SALVADOR: ‘Patriarchal justice persecutes, tortures and abuses women’

  CIVICUS speaks with Sara García Gross about the recent judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) against the Salvadoran state, and the struggle of Salvadoran women for the right to abortion.

  Sara García Gross is advocacy coordinator of the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion in El Salvador. Founded in 2009, the organisation promotes public awareness to change abortion laws, provides legal support to women who have been convicted or charged with abortion or related crimes and disseminates information on the importance of women receiving adequate sexual and reproductive healthcare to prevent them resorting to unsafe, life-threatening abortions.

  What is El Salvador’s feminist movement demanding when it comes to sexual and reproductive rights?

  As feminists we are fighting to change the law that criminalises abortion under all circumstances. In El Salvador women are unjustly persecuted. Women’s reproductive rights are violated, especially for younger women and those who live in poverty and in the country’s rural areas. In this sense, we in the feminist movement are fighting to change a restrictive, absolutist and absurd regulatory framework.

  We are also fighting for women’s freedom. There are currently 12 women in prison serving sentences that are extremely unjust. Our fight is for women’s freedom and women’s lives. We want abortion to be legal in El Salvador. We fight for women to have the right to build our own lives. We denounce forced pregnancies; this is a form of torture. There are girls as young as 10 years old who face forced motherhood. There are young women who have not received any sexual education and do not have access to contraceptive methods. We are fighting for the right to comprehensive sex education.

  We also fight for the recognition of the rights of LGBTQI+ people, because hate crimes are another cruel form of torture that the state imposes or condones.

  What tactics does the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion use?

  In our struggle for women’s freedom, we have pursued multiple strategies, starting with strategic litigation to obtain everything from commutations of sentences to sentence reviews. Our focus is on achieving freedom, putting into practice the feminist slogan ‘I believe you sister’. We fight for the recognition of the innocence of women facing unjust and absurd sentences.

  But the legal route has not been our only key strategy; social mobilisation at national and regional levels has also played a major role. The feminist movement has organised and spoken out in relation to the cases of criminalised women. Sit-ins have been organised in front of embassies in El Salvador and other countries, letters have been sent to the courts and campaigns for reproductive justice have been carried out, including the ‘We are missing 17’ campaign.

  Another very important strategy has involved the Inter-American human rights system. We brought the case of a woman known as Manuela to the IACtHR, which recently condemned the Salvadoran state for cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Strategic litigation in the Inter-American system has allowed us to address the problems of persecution, torture and judicial and police abuse faced by women in El Salvador. Justice in El Salvador is patriarchal justice.

  Another strategy has focused on collecting evidence. We have carried out an investigation called ‘From hospital to prison’, which allowed us to make this problem visible. Through a review and analysis of case files, sentences and investigations, we have been able to understand who anti-abortion legislation targets and who it persecutes: young and poor women living in rural areas. This constitutes intersectional discrimination.

  The campaigns, dialogues and debates we promote in academia as well as grassroots communities have also been part of our strategy. Advocacy processes are key, so that when we are able to identify windows of opportunity in the Legislative Assembly or other state institutions, we can promote the submission of new initiatives.

  In the past, several bills were submitted to reform article 133 of the Criminal Code to decriminalise abortion on four grounds. These bills were far from getting passed; in some cases they were quickly shelved and in others they languished for years in legislative committees. Women’s organisations were met with great hostility. However, our advocacy strategies allowed us to place the issue of abortion on the public agenda.

  What does Salvadoran public opinion think about abortion and what work are you doing to present an alternative narrative to criminalisation?

  Among public opinion, there is broad acceptance of abortion when it’s needed to save a pregnant woman’s life: more than half of the population has said so in various surveys.

  We live in a conservative country, with some fundamentalist groups calling themselves ‘pro-life’. The reality is that they are in favour of clandestine abortion, criminalisation and women dying. These groups maintain a double standard that we, as organised feminist civil society, work to expose. While women living in poverty are criminalised, those with economic resources are able to travel and access safe abortions. This double standard is unacceptable.

  For us, it is important to visualise other narratives and make women’s realities known. Reducing stigma requires showing, humanising and talking about life stories. These are women who had hopes and plans for their lives that state violence prevented them from realising.

  Talking about the issue in different places, humanising this reality and questioning this system that imposes the mandate of motherhood – a gender stereotype – allows us to address the issue without stigma or prejudice and, above all, from a human rights perspective.

  What are the implications of the IACtHR ruling in Manuela’s case?

  This ruling came after years of work and struggle. We started working on the case in 2011, providing psychosocial, political and legal support to Manuela’s family.

  Advocacy in the Inter-American system was key. The ruling in Manuela’s case is historic: the IACtHR has recognised that Manuela was innocent, that she really faced an obstetric emergency and that gender stereotypes, starting with the mandate of motherhood, permeated the entire process. The IACtHR has understood that the absolute ban on abortion results in criminalisation and obstacles to access to reproductive rights.

  The judgment will have both national and regional effects. The main regional effect is the establishment of jurisprudence that obliges both El Salvador and the rest of the countries in the region to take a series of measures. First, to guarantee professional secrecy of health personnel so that no woman seeking reproductive health services is denounced for alleged abortion-related crimes. Second, to ensure that gender stereotypes are not applied in the judicial sphere, including those claiming that women must act according to a reproductive role and, therefore, with maternal instinct. Third, to implement adequate protocols to attend to obstetric emergencies with accessible and quality health services.

  The Salvadoran state will have to carry out some additional actions in compliance with the IACtHR ruling. First, while it is in the process of regulating the obligation to maintain medical professional secrecy and the confidentiality of medical records, it must eliminate the practice of medical professionals denouncing women who seek reproductive health services. Second, it must provide full reparations to Manuela’s family. Third, it must make legislative and policy changes to ensure non-repetition, so that no one else goes through a similar experience, for instance by guaranteeing comprehensive care in cases of obstetric emergencies and adapting pre-trial detention so that it is only used in exceptional cases.

  We continue to fight so that women are never again criminalised. There are still 12 women who remain in prison, but we believe that Manuela’s case shines a light on these injustices and gives us the strength to continue fighting. For us, Manuela means justice and hope.

  What kind of support do abortion rights groups in El Salvador need from their peers around the world? 

  We believe feminist solidarity is key. We want to make this issue visible in the region and the world. We want people to talk about what is happening here. We want people to talk about the consequences of the absolute prohibition of abortion. We want people to talk about how this punitive system does not solve anything.

  It is not acceptable for the exercise of a reproductive right – a right to health – to be treated as a crime entailing prison sentences. We need to shine the spotlight on El Salvador and make the Salvadoran state feel it is being watched. Every chance we get, we must demand freedom for women, freedom for the 12 who are still in prison and reparations for all the women who have faced this kind of criminalisation. We must demand that abortion be legally recognised as a right.

  Civic space in El Salvador is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion in El Salvador through itswebsite orFacebook andInstagram pages, and follow@AbortoPORlaVIDA on Twitter. 

• EL SALVADOR: ‘Rather than a real security policy, what the government has is an electoral strategy’

  CIVICUS speaks about the one-year state of emergency in El Salvador with César Artiga, founder and coordinator of the National Promoting Team of the Escazú Agreement and of the National Promoting Group for Resolution 2250 on the Youth, Peace and Security Agenda.

  These citizen groups have supported processes of social awareness-raising, legal empowerment and political advocacy since 2017. They promote and defend human rights, peace building, justice and sustainability by working with groups and communities living in conditions of exclusion and vulnerability, particularly in relation to their environmental rights.

• EL SALVADOR: ‘The election is only a formality to give the green light to a dictatorship’

  CIVICUS speaks about El Salvador’s general election with Carolina Amaya, a Salvadoran freelance journalist specialising in climate crises and socio-environmental conflicts.

  What’s at stake in this election?

  Eighty years after the end of the Maximiliano Martínez dictatorship, El Salvador is approaching a new dictatorship. On 4 February, once President Nayib Bukele is unconstitutionally re-elected, Salvadorans will lose guarantees for our basic human rights.

  Bukele's first administration was characterised by widespread human rights violations: excessive militarisation, a prolonged state of emergency, stigmatisation and criminalisation of poverty as synonymous with involvement in gangs, attacks on independent press, land dispossession, environmental destruction, persecution of environmental defenders – the list goes on. This reality is disguised by propaganda disseminated by media and content creators aligned with the government. Their narrative is that gangs will be back on the streets if Bukele or his party, Nuevas Ideas, lose power.

  Bukele is seeking re-election after ignoring the Salvadoran constitution, which does not allow it. Therefore, his new administration will be unconstitutional, as will all the decisions he makes. It is to be feared that all the rights enshrined in that same constitution will be violated. And we will no longer know how long Bukele and his circle will remain in power.

  In short, what is at stake in the election is our dying democracy. Salvadoran citizens will get to have their say at the ballot box now, but it is uncertain whether they will be able to do so freely again in the future.

  What are the chances of this election being truly free and fair?

  The election will be free, but completely irregular given that the front-runner’s candidacy is unconstitutional. The process has been flawed from the moment the Supreme Electoral Tribunal allowed the registration of Bukele’s candidacy, despite him being ineligible for re-election.

  As for fairness, there are other parties running on different platforms, but competition is unequal. The ruling party has made use of official funds for its electoral campaign, while the rest had to use their own funds to compete against a lavishly funded apparatus with a strong presence on both social and traditional media. This annihilates any alternative, so the election is only a formality to give the green light to a dictatorship.

  The democracy that was born in 1992 has been eroded over the years. Every political party that has held power has been embroiled in corruption scandals. Corruption, the arrogance of elites, the inefficiency of the state and the lack of transparency have resulted in widespread distrust. Impoverished communities have become strongholds of Bukelism because they depend on government welfare to satisfy immediate needs; it is clear to them that they cannot expect long-term solutions.

  The government has campaigned intensely by handing out food boxes and cutting the ribbon on construction projects, all of which is prohibited by the Electoral Code. But there is no authority that can put a stop to these illegal acts because the entire state structure is co-opted by Bukelism, including the judiciary and watchdog bodies.

  What has the climate of opinion been ahead of the election?

  Social media such as YouTube and TikTok are dominated by disinformation and the manipulation of information, while a campaign of fear has taken hold on television. This is nothing new in El Salvador: political parties have long campaigned on the fear that El Salvador could become another Cuba or Venezuela. Now the threat is focused on insecurity and the preservation of life.

  It is very concerning that this messaging has permeated Salvadoran society to the point of not only normalising Bukele's unconstitutional candidacy but also giving him the certainty of a comfortable win.

  What’s the position of civil society, the political opposition and public opinion regarding the government's security policy?

  Bukele’s government has been authoritarian throughout all these years and in many ways, not just in the area of security. During the pandemic it locked up thousands of people who did not comply with isolation directions. When the quarantine was over, it established the state of emergency that continues to allow it to spy on us, persecute us and lock us up. Bukele has militarised the streets, and this has intensified in January 2024, on the eve of the election. The military has been patrolling every neighbourhood of San Salvador, the capital, to demonstrate its presence and power.

  The public is grateful that the gangs lost much of their grip over the country. That is the main achievement of the Bukele administration. The problem is that most people are unaware of the reality of Bukele’s negotiations with gangs, so they think that he managed to clear the streets of gang members just by subjecting them to his state of emergency.

  The media’s handling of images of imprisoned gang members has been very effective, to the point that it has had international repercussions. In several Latin American countries experiencing the scourge of organised crime, people are calling for an authoritarian figure just like Bukele to put an end to it. Even the president of Honduras, ideologically far removed from Bukele, has opted for militarisation and the use of repression to deal with gangs.

  How has civic space been restricted under Bukele?

  As a journalist, I can attest to the fact that many people shy away from the cameras because they dare not make public statements. Sources that spoke to me for years have increasingly stopped responding to my calls, starting from 2019, when Bukele came to power. The situation has worsened as this administration has progressed. Freedom of expression is increasingly limited, as is freedom of assembly. For example, when marches are called in the capital, police blockades are set up to hold back buses coming from the interior.

  Harassment of dissenting voices is also apparent on social media. Day after day, journalists and human rights defenders are denigrated by armies of trolls. I am among the 10 female journalists most attacked on Twitter. Attacks against us women are often misogynistic in nature.

  Some organisations, such as Acción Ciudadana, the Association of Journalists of El Salvador and Cristosal, continue to denounce the lack of a free environment for the expression of opinions, but their complaints have had little effect. Freedom of expression has continued to erode. And a country without freedom of expression, where human rights are violated and human rights defenders are persecuted, is nothing short of a dictatorship.

  ---

  Civic space in El Salvador is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Follow@sharkgirl_sv on Twitter.

• EL SALVADOR: ‘The president’s aim is to concentrate power’

  CIVICUS speaks with Eduardo Escobar, executive director of Acción Ciudadana, an organisation that promotes transparency, accountability and the fight against corruption in El Salvador, about the political situation since President Nayib Bukele’s party won the February 2021 legislative election.

  

  Do you think that democracy and the rule of law are being eroded in El Salvador?

  We should first ask ourselves whether El Salvador ever had a full democracy with the rule of law. If we reduce democracy to its electoral dimension, we could say that the will of the people has been respected and elections have become the only road to power. Despite some irregularities, we have had democracy in that sense. Since 2009, some progress was also made in terms of the balance of powers: we got an independent Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, an independent Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP) and a prosecutor’s office that was striving to do its job.

  Thus, when Nayib Bukele became president in 2019, there was a functioning electoral democracy, with some important advances being made in the republican dimension and the rule of law. President Bukele interrupted this process, constantly attacking the freedom of expression, the freedom of the press and the freedom of association. In the context of the pandemic, the government illegitimately and unconstitutionally violated the freedom of movement. What little progress had been made was completely lost.

  After the legislative elections held on 28 February 2021, which Bukele won by a wide margin, legal certainty ceased to exist. As soon as the new legislative assembly formed in early May, it dismissed the judges of the Constitutional Chamber and the head of the attorney general’s office. We had come to trust that the Constitutional Chamber would protect us from arbitrariness, but that certainty vanished in an instant. Shortly afterwards, the new Constitutional Chamber enabled the president’s immediate re-election for a second term, so far prohibited by the Salvadoran Constitution.

  Have the opposition or civil society been able to do anything about recent changes?

  The opposition was not smart. Until May 2021 it held an absolute majority in the legislative assembly but failed to take advantage of it. Opposition parties didn’t think they needed to hurry because they never thought they would lose. Now they have become irrelevant. Their presence is merely testimonial because the president’s party, Nuevas Ideas, and its allies have a supermajority. The opposition is limited to making statements and peddling proposals that everyone knows will not prosper.

  Most of civil society has been closed off from participating in the legislative process. It is not that in the past every civil society proposal was approved – in fact, they were often not even discussed – but there were certain thematic areas where civil society participation was vital to pass a law. That is over: now only pro-government organisations are invited and admitted to committee sessions. Independent civil society has little influence over public policy because the government does not understand its role and is unwilling to integrate its input into decision-making. Thus, it has been reduced to a voice of denunciation with no power to reverse illegal or unconstitutional decisions, as there are no independent institutions left to react to its demands.

  President Bukele campaigned on an anti-corruption programme. Has there been any progress in this regard?

  The instrumentalisation of the issue of corruption was one of the bases of Bukele’s victory; his campaign slogan was ‘give back what you stole’. The issue of corruption is broad and complex, but that slogan was clear and precise, and appealed to many people. But it was only a campaign strategy.

  Once in power, he deactivated all existing anti-corruption mechanisms, disregarding IAIP resolutions, preventing audits by the Court of Auditors of government ministries, denying the prosecutor’s office access to public bodies involved in corruption cases, and finally removing the prosecutor and imposing one of his unconditional supporters, who even has legal complaints filed against him. We have no way of knowing the government’s expenditure, particularly those related to the pandemic. The administration has been so opaque that we don’t even have reliable data on how many people were infected with COVID-19, how many were hospitalised and how many died. The government does not provide information, it hides it. And when there are revelations or allegations of corruption, it attacks and defames the whistle-blower.

  How has this situation affected Acción Ciudadana’s work?

  Acción Ciudadana promotes political reform, transparency, accountability, citizen participation and the fight against corruption and impunity. Hence, much of the work we do is monitoring: we monitor political financing, internal political party elections and electoral propaganda; the work of the attorney general’s office, transparency in public administration and obstacles to access information; and the functioning of institutional mechanisms for the prevention, detection and punishment of corruption.

  To do our investigations we need access to public information, but the avenues of access are being closed. For example, the law establishes that information on travel by public officials must be public; however, the government has decided that this information is to be kept confidential for seven years. In this particular case there has been some pressure in the media and on social media, and the government changed its criteria and now withholds this information for up to 30 days after each trip, supposedly to protect the security of the concerned official. This is still illegal.

  When we are denied information that should be public, we can no longer turn to the bodies that safeguard access to information because they are either co-opted or frightened. For example, some political parties – starting with the ruling party – do not hand over their financial information to us. We have repeatedly denounced this to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal for almost three years, but the Tribunal does not accept our complaints. So when a party does not provide us with information, we no longer appeal to the Tribunal, and when faced with an unconstitutional law, we no longer appeal to the Constitutional Chamber.

  We have also lost much of our advocacy capacity. Normally our monitoring would lead to legal complaints and criminal investigations. But nowadays the most we can do is publish the results of our investigations in some media outlets and offer them to the public. We can no longer feed them into institutional processes. For example, we found that in the 2019 presidential campaign a company donated US$1 million to the Grand Alliance for National Unity, Bukele’s electoral coalition, and in 2020 the government awarded that company a public-private partnership contract to manage and expand the airport. We see this as a case of conflict of interest, but we cannot take the issue to the prosecutor’s office or the Court of Auditors and ask them to investigate.

  President Bukele seems difficult to classify ideologically. What is his programme?

  If I had to classify the president’s party, I would say that it is a catch-all party, without an ideologically defined political project. Until he was expelled in 2017, Bukele belonged to the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, and he portrayed himself as a revolutionary leftist who embraced Hugo Chávez and spoke of social justice. Then, as president-elect, he gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation, one of the most conservative think tanks in the USA, and he couldn’t have sounded more neoliberal. He has always claimed that the issues that need solutions were not a matter of ideology, and Nuevas Ideas was set up with the logic that everyone could fit in it, regardless of whether they were on the left or on the right. And that’s how it has been; there’s a bit of everything in there.

  Bukele does not have an ideological programme; his aim is to concentrate power. He can take right-wing or left-wing measures, but not because he has one ideology or the other, but because it happens to be what benefits him the most. For example, most of the pension system in El Salvador is private and he will probably nationalise it, not because he believes that this essential public service should be managed by the state, but because the Pension Fund moves millions of dollars, and the government wants to get its hands on it because it is short of resources, in debt and without further sources of funding, since the possibility of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund has just collapsed. Of course, privatisation is being presented as an act of justice towards pensioners, who receive miserable pensions. Based on this measure, an outside observer might think that his is a leftist government, but this is not an ideological measure, but rather one made out of convenience. The government is driven by the pursuit of political and economic gain, which is why it often appears erratic or improvised. There is no vision to guide the government’s planning.

  What are the causes of the protests currently faced by the government?

  The protests that began in early September erupted in reaction to the adoption of bitcoin as an official currency alongside the US dollar. Many people who support and value Bukele have opposed this measure, because they thought it could adversely affect them. This is the first government measure that has been widely rejected, and I think it was not only because of opposition to the cryptocurrency, but also because of the way decisions are being made, in the absence of sufficient information, debate and participation. Bukele made the announcement of this measure at an event in Miami on a Saturday, and the following Monday the bill was submitted to Congress. By Tuesday it had been passed. Everything was resolved in three or four days, amid total secrecy.

  Unfortunately, the reaction on this issue has been an exception, possibly because it is a subject that many people don’t understand much about, which causes fear. Generally speaking, most people applaud the president, his handling of the pandemic and his Territorial Control Plan, which is a strategy for militarising citizen security. This is because the narrative constructed by the government has been successful. For example, when the judges of the Constitutional Chamber were dismissed – a manoeuvre that civil society denounced as a coup d’état – the government said that the corrupt had been thrown out and many people believed it. There were people who came out to protest, not only from organised civil society, but also citizens in general, but they were a minority. It is difficult to counter the official narrative.

  What support does Salvadoran civil society need to be able to play its full role?

  It is quite complicated. Journalists manage to get information leaked to them and get their stories out, but we are not journalists. To get the information we need to play our accountability role we look for it on institutional portals and make information requests. Any effort to get public institutions to disclose information a bit more would help us.

  We also need support in terms of personal and digital security, as well as in the area of communications, because evidently civil society has not been able to communicate our messages adequately and we have not been able to build an alternative narrative to the official one.

  Civic space in El Salvador is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Acción Ciudadana through itsFacebook page and follow@CiudadanaAccio1 and@esec76 on Twitter. 

• El Salvador: Stop attacks on civil society and civic freedoms

  Government extends a state of emergency with unprecedented mass arrests and restrictions on civic rights.

• Five reasons why the elections in Nicaragua do not guarantee human rights

  On 7 November 2021, general elections will be held in Nicaragua in the context of a deterioration of the human rights crisis that began with the repression of protests in April 2018. The undersigned organizations are deeply concerned about the continuing grave human rights violations and their recent escalation. The following sets out five reasons which explain why the coming general election will take place in a context of severe restrictions on civil and political liberties. 

  As President Daniel Ortega seeks a fourth consecutive term, government repression of critics and the political opposition has intensified. This increasingly alarming deterioration includes violations of personal freedom and safety, freedom of expression and association, freedom of the press, as well as other restrictions on the exercise of civil and political rights. These human rights violations have affected various groups in situations of vulnerability, including women, who, as reports have stated, experience differentiated impacts.

  Since the end of May, the Nicaraguan government has detained 39 people it views as government opponents, including seven presidential candidates. Some of these detainees were victims of enforced disappearance for weeks or months. These abuses mark the beginning of a new stage in the campaign of repression and criminalization of dissident voices, journalists and human rights defenders, facilitated by a lack of judicial independence and the executive’s control of the National Assembly, which has enacted laws that violate fundamental rights of freedom of expression, assembly and association, and the right to vote and run for public office in free and fair elections.

  It is clear that, at this time, the conditions do not exist in Nicaragua for holding elections that guarantee the exercise of rights and, therefore, we call on the international community, multilateral organizations and international human rights organizations to strengthen their efforts to put an end to the human rights crisis.

   

  1. ARBITRARY DETENTION AND ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE

  Since 28 May 2021, the government of Daniel Ortega has detained 39 people perceived as government opponents, including presidential candidates, public political figures, student leaders, activists, campesino representatives, defence lawyers and journalists. Some were subjected to enforced disappearance for weeks or months before the authorities provided information on their whereabouts. Many have been subjected to continuous interrogation in abusive conditions of detention, including prolonged isolation and insufficient food, which may constitute torture and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under international law. The recent arrests are in addition to the more than 100 people perceived as critics who have remained arbitrarily detained for a prolonged period in the context of the human rights crisis in the country. 

  The Nicaraguan state mustend the practice of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance and immediately and unconditionally release all those unjustly detained for exercising their rights. This is essential in order to restore the full enjoyment of all their rights, including the rights to vote and to run for and hold public office in general conditions of equality.

   

  2. LACK OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE AND VIOLATIONS OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO JUSTICE

  The authorities continue to use the criminal justice system, taking advantage of the lack of judicial independence, to subject people perceived as opponents to arbitrary proceedings and imprisonment. Frequently, violations of due process and fair trial guarantees include violations of the presumption of innocence, the requirement to present a court order at the time of arrest, the right to be tried before an independent and impartial judge, the right to access detailed information about the charges against them, the right to legal defence and to free and confidential communication with a lawyer of their choice. The Nicaraguan judiciary’s lack of independence also means that those who are the targets of threats do not have access to any impartial authority to which they can turn to make a complaint or request protection.

  The authorities have also failed to comply with the recommendations of international human rights mechanisms, thereby obstructing the exercise of fundamental rights. 

  The Nicaraguan state mustensure that people have access to justice, truth and reparation for crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations (such as enforced disappearance, torture and arbitrary detention) committed before and during the election context.

   

  3. VIOLATIONS OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND OF THE PRESS

  The authorities persecute human rights defenders, independent journalists and dissidents or perceived opponents solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression. As part of this repressive strategy, in October 2020 the National Assembly adopted theLaw to Regulate Foreign Agents and theSpecial Law on Cybercrime, which severely restrict freedom of expression and association. 

  Between July and August 2021, the authorities ordered the closure of 45 non-governmental organizations, including women’s associations, international humanitarian organizations and several medical associations. Another 10 organizations have been closed down since 2018.

  In addition, the government continues to support a series of attacks and undue restrictions on the independent media and communications workers, as well as organizations that defend press freedom; these include administrative and criminal investigations, the detention of journalists and raids on media offices and the seizure of their assets. In this worrying context, not only are the rights of the professionals and the media under attack violated, but the public’s access to information, key for the proper exercise of political rights, is restricted.  

  The Nicaraguan state must protect and respect the right to freedom of expression, including freedom of the press, which is essential for access to information and pluralistic debate in the context of an election. In addition, it must stop the harassment, stigmatization and criminalization of human rights defenders, journalists and dissidents or perceived opponents, solely for expressing their criticism of state policies.

   

  4. VIOLATIONS OF POLITICAL RIGHTS

  The government has tried to eliminate and discourage electoral competition through the arbitrary detention and prosecution of opponents and presidential candidates, resulting in the withdrawal of their political rights. In turn, it has revoked the legal status of the main opposition parties, preventing them from participating in the elections. 

  In December 2020, the National Assembly approved theLaw for the Defence of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-determination for Peace, which has been used to open criminal investigations against many of those detained since late May. This law includes broad and vaguely worded provisions that restrict the right to run for public office. 

  Local organizations have already indicated that, in these conditions, the electoral process does not guarantee the full exercise of political rights.

  The Nicaraguan people have a right to exercise their right to vote freely, without intimidation, and the right to run for and hold public office in general conditions of equality. For thefull and effective exercise of these rights, it is essential that freedom of expression, assembly and association be guaranteed.

  The Nicaraguan state must guarantee the conditions necessary for the population to satisfactorily exercise its right to participate in the conduct of public affairs.

   

  5. LACK OF GUARANTEES FOR THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT TO PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY

  In response to the 2018 protests, state officials used excessive, disproportionate and often unnecessary force against demonstrators demanding their rights. According to a group of independent experts appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the police and pro-government armed groups, with the support of the Nicaraguan government, committed widespread abuses, including extrajudicial executions, against protesters who, in the vast majority of cases, were unarmed. Impunity has been the norm for serious abuses during the 2018 protests. 

  Despite international scrutiny, the response to those demonstrating and promoting respect for human rights has continued to be one of repression. 

  The recent upsurge in the repression and harassment of dissident voices allows the conclusion that the state will not guarantee the right to peaceful assembly if new demonstrations are held in the context of the elections.

  The Nicaraguan state must guarantee freedom of peaceful assembly before, during and after the election process.

   

  Amnesty International

  Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL)

  CIVICUS

  Human Rights Watch

  International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights

  Washington Office on Latin America 

  World Organisation Against Torture

  People in Need

  International Network of Human Rights

  Women’s Link Worldwide

• GUATEMALA: ‘Anti-rights groups seek to maintain the privileges of some at the expense of the rights of others’

  CIVICUS speaks with the team of Visibles about recent anti-rights developments in Guatemala.

  Founded in 2017, Visibles is a Guatemalan organisation that works to achieve the full inclusion of diverse people and build a society where all people can exercise their rights and enjoy respect, freedom and wellbeing.

  The draft Law for the Protection of Life and the Family had been shelved for several years. Why was it finally approved now?

  Bill 5272, passed by the Guatemalan Congress as Decree 18-2022, increased penalties for abortion to a minimum of five years in prison and banned same-sex marriage and the teaching of sexual diversity in schools.

  It had been submitted on 26 April 2017 by a representative of the conservative party Visión con Valores (‘Vision with Values’). After obtaining a favourable opinion from the Committee on Legislation and Constitutional Affairs, the full Congress discussed and approved it on its first two readings in 2018.

  But to pass a law in Guatemala, it is necessary to gather the support of a certain number of lawmakers before submitting it to a vote on the floor. This did not happen until 2022, when the ruling alliance and the political and economic groups that support them made it one of their priorities to promote this conservative agenda.

  The current president of Congress, Shirley Rivera, came to this position after a very limited career, focused solely on proposing laws that stigmatise the transgender population and seek to grant greater freedoms to churches, particularly in the way they report on their finances.

  In March, in a sort of counterbalance to the traditional celebration of International Women’s Day, a day of feminist mobilisation, Congress declared a National Day of Commemoration of Life and Family and approved this regressive initiative. From its various branches, the state promoted a number of communication actions and events involving national and international groups linked to the anti-gender movement, aimed at promoting the defence of life from the moment of conception and a traditional, narrow and exclusionary definition of the family – that is, a broad cause that seeks to restrict the autonomy and freedoms of women and LGBTQI+ people.

  On the same date, Congress passed Decree 18-2022, and by an overwhelming majority: only eight out of 160 legislators voted against it, while 52 abstained. 

  Do you see this move as part of a broader regional anti-rights trend?

  It definitely is. Anti-rights groups in Guatemala are part of a highly organised and well-funded transnational movement that aims to undermine the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people, as well as the broader participation of civil society in public debate and decision-making.

  The passing of Decree 18-2022 was not a reaction against the very limited progress made in recent years in the recognition of sexual and gender diversity and women’s rights. It served to reinforce social hierarchies that benefit the powerful and maintain or even increase their power.

  Women and LGBTQI+ people are easy targets. The attacks against us reflect a resistance to the social transformations we seek: to unleash the talents and potential of more than half the population.

  The feminist, women’s, and diversity movements represent some of the obstacles facing this project of power and control, but they are not the only ones. Another obstacle arises from the fact that thanks to increased access to technology, social discontent has grown and voices have risen demanding accountability. There are growing demands for urgent action to transform the economy to ensure that it serves to create better opportunities for all individuals and families, as well as growing attention on issues such as climate change and the preservation of the environment and of the lives of those resisting transnational extractivism.

  How did civil society organise in the face of this anti-rights attack?

  In Guatemala, there are numerous organisations – women’s, Indigenous peoples’, youth, sexual and gender diversity, student and religious organisations – that have organised to resist the advances of this regressive agenda. After spaces for the fight against corruption shut down, following the dissolution of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala in September 2019, one of the main developments that took place was the criminalisation of those who had promoted it, from human rights defenders to prosecutors and judges who had worked within state institutions.

  This closure of spaces prompted the search for new ideas and routes to advance the construction of justice. Now, resistance to the entry into force of Decree 18-2022 has shown us the way.

  The state of Guatemala has actively and systematically collaborated to create a narrative hostile to the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people. And it has done so in a very hypocritical way, as it has promoted public policies that invoke the protection of life and family while at the same time demonstrating a complete lack of commitment to improving the conditions in which Guatemalan individuals and families live. This incoherence becomes an insult when a law is passed that, by criminalising women and LGBTQI+ people, endangers more than half of the population.

  On the same day that Decree 18-2022 was passed, protests began. Street pressure was novel and important: it showed that organisations can work in a coalition and that people are willing to join in and look out for the welfare of all.

  Mobilisation raised the cost the government would pay if it validated the congressional decision. The administration led by President Alejandro Giammattei was already unpopular and facing a growing number of demands for accountability – from journalistic investigations revealing the misuse of power and allegations of corruption to international sanctions against key officials. In this context, President Giammattei threatened to veto the law on the grounds that it violated Guatemala’s constitution and international agreements Guatemala has made, and Congress reacted by reversing and shelving the law.

  How is Visibles working to improve the situation of LGBTQI+ people in Guatemala?

  Visibles works to change people’s ideas, attitudes and behaviours towards LGBTQI+ people and their rights through research, training, proactive communication, and advocacy efforts. We believe that our long-term vision – that of a society that is fully inclusive of diverse people, ensuring that we all enjoy respect, freedom, and wellbeing and can exercise all of our rights – is only achievable if we start by having one-to-one conversations with families, friends, and people within our spheres of action so that we can move together from a position of prejudice to one of acceptance.

  The experience of collective resistance in the face of anti-rights advances united inspired and engaged us further. Resistance against a tangible policy that seeks control over our bodies and our lives as women and LGBTQI+ people challenged us much more directly than a distant and abstract notion of access to justice. Today we are driven by the collective construction of a gender justice project that enshrines the right of all people to live with dignity. We hope that these new practices and transformative goals will revitalise the human rights movement.

  What international support does civil society defending the human rights of LGBTQI+ people in Guatemala need?

  The approval of – and subsequent U-turn over – Decree 18-2022 gave us a taste of the real power the state has over women and LGBTQI+ people in Guatemala. The risk does not disappear because the law has been shelved, but this may hopefully have the effect of sending a wake-up call to the international community.

  It is important that they turn their attention, support and resources to Guatemala, whose anti-rights forces are part of a regional advance guard. We cannot lower our guard and allow anti-gender movements to advance their goal of sustaining and consolidating unjust structures of unequal power in which some maintain their privileges at the expense of the basic rights of others.

  Civic space in Guatemala is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Visibles through itswebsite or itsFacebook andInstagram pages, and follow@visiblesgt on Twitter. 

• GUATEMALA: ‘Corrupt elites see defenders of justice as a threat to their interests and try to silence them’

  CIVICUS discusses the state of civic space and justice in Guatemala with former anti-corruption prosecutor Virginia Laparra.

  Virginia recently went into exile after spending two years in prison for a case brought against her in retaliation for her work. She received a five-year sentence, which she condemned as arbitrary. As a prosecutor, she led important investigations into corruption cases. This put her in the crosshairs of a judicial system that had become a guarantor of impunity. While in prison, she suffered violations of her fundamental rights and medical negligence. Her case is part of a pattern of repression that has forced over 50 human rights defenders and members of the Guatemalan judiciary into exile.

   

  What circumstances forced you to leave Guatemala?

  For 16 years I worked in the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’s Office as a prosecutor for crimes against life, property crimes, violence against women, crimes against minors, drug trafficking, financial and tax crimes and customs smuggling. This experience helped me to train in different areas and this is how my career as a prosecutor took shape.

  As time went on, I took on more and more responsibility, becoming head of various units and offices, including the Permanent Attention Office, which deals with complaints and classifies information received by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. I was also in charge of the regional headquarters of the Office of the Special Prosecutor against Impunity, which worked hand in hand with the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala on cases of organised crime and corruption.

  My work didn’t go unnoticed. Starting in 2017, I received threats and was subjected to smear campaigns in the government-controlled media. Persecution included arbitrary judicial proceedings and an attempt to put my case in the hands of judges known for their ties to corruption. Finally, I was arrested in an illegal and arbitrary procedure and sent to prison, where I suffered torture, human rights violations and prolonged solitary confinement.

  I received the support of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which issued several resolutions in my favour, and I was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. But the Guatemalan state ignored these demands. I spent two years in prison, and when I was released in January, threats intensified. In the absence of guarantees for my safety, I took the difficult decision to leave my country to preserve my life and freedom.

  Fortunately, in exile I have found new ways to contribute to the promotion of justice and human rights in Latin America by working with international and local organisations. Above all, I’m satisfied with the work I did in Guatemala and proud to have contributed to justice.

  What are the challenges facing human rights defenders and the judicial officials in Guatemala?

  Civic space in Guatemala is in crisis. There were hopes that the government of Bernardo Arévalo, which took office in January this year, would reform the judicial system and create a more favourable environment for the administration of justice. It’s true that little time has passed, but it seems unlikely this will be achieved. The powerful interests that perpetuate corruption and impunity remain intact, and the new administration has faced strong pressures that limit its ability to implement substantial change.

  Human rights defenders, members of the judiciary and politicians who support the Arévalo government face intimidation, threats, attacks and arbitrary detention. Impunity only exacerbates the risks.

  Corrupt elites who have stayed in power by plundering public resources see defenders of justice as a threat to their interests and try to silence them through smear campaigns, persecution and physical violence. The exile of Thelma Aldana, Juan Francisco Sandoval and many other former members of the judiciary, human rights defenders and journalists is a stark reminder of the hostility faced by those who work for justice, transparency and accountability.

  How can the international community support the fight against impunity in Guatemala?

  The international community can and must play a crucial role in this fight. International platforms should highlight and condemn human rights violations. Diplomatic voices must urge the Guatemalan government to guarantee respect for human rights. It is also essential that they provide financial and technical support to local civil society organisations.

  The international community should support the fight against corruption and impunity in Guatemala and coordinate its efforts to ensure it has deep and lasting impact. They must help protect human rights defenders and ensure the justice system is not used as a weapon to stifle dissent.

   

  Civic space in Guatemala is rated as ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

• GUATEMALA: ‘Criminal law is being used as a weapon of political persecution’

  CIVICUS discusses corruption in Guatemala and the criminalisation of anti-corruption activism with Claudia González, former member of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and Virginia Laparra’s defence attorney.

  Virginia Laparra is a former prosecutor of the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity (FECI) who has recently been unjustly sentenced to four years in prison. The #LibertadParaVirginia (#FreedomForVirginia) campaign is mobilising in response.

• GUATEMALA: ‘Judicial harassment and criminal prosecution have wearing effects’

  On World Press Freedom Day, CIVICUS speaks with Carlos Ernesto Choc, a Q’eqchi’ Mayan journalist with almost two decades of experience, about the criminalisation of journalism and the media in Guatemala.

  What are the conditions for journalists in Guatemala?

  The conditions for the practice of journalism in Guatemala are quite difficult. We face criminal prosecution by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and threats from various sources, including public officials that journalists are questioning or investigating. Defamation campaigns against journalists are also very concerning.

  The internet and social media are full of trolls who send threatening and defamatory messages. They discredit journalistic work and attacks naturally follow. These even come from the state, and particularly from public security agencies. The National Civil Police attack the media and journalists both in the context of demonstrations and at other times and places where they do not want coverage of events in order to preserve impunity for crimes or violations of rights perpetrated on the ground.

  Since 2015, aggressions against the press have only escalated. Now as well as being criminally prosecuted, judicially harassed, threatened, intimidated and vilified, you can be thrown into prison. To be able to do this, they accuse you of charges that are normally used to fight organised crime, such as illicit association, as in my case, or money laundering, as in the case of my colleague Rubén Zamora. In other words, we are accused of being criminals and prosecuted under accusations of having links to organised crime, leading land invasions or instigating crime. These are clearly fabricated accusations, so we are baselessly, illegally detained. They ultimately have no way of proving their accusations, but in the meantime you remain subject to lengthy criminal proceedings.

  While all journalists are vulnerable in this country right now, those of us who investigate environmental aggression, human rights violations and issues related to drug trafficking and corruption are particularly vulnerable. These are really complicated issues and some investigate them anonymously because many have been murdered, the most recent being Eduardo Mendizabal, just over a month ago.

  The situation is getting more complicated by the day and some community journalists have chosen to emigrate and quit journalism. It is sad to see colleagues leave, and under the current government there have been more and more of them. I don’t see myself in exile, but I view this as an option of last resort.

  What is your situation after the criminalisation you have experienced?

  Mine has been a case of judicial persecution that has been used to attempt to silence me. It started in 2017 when I was investigating the pollution of Lake Izabal. I was documenting protests by fishers against mining and I captured the exact moment when a protester was killed by shots fired by the National Civil Police. The accusation against me came from the mining company, Solway Investment Group – a Russian-owned company based in Switzerland. In August 2017, a warrant for my arrest was issued. One hearing after another was postponed so only in January 2019 could I finally give testimony before the court, as a result of which I was handed an alternative measure to prison.

  When you have an alternative measure to imprisonment you are free under certain conditions: you are forced to visit the Public Prosecutor’s Office every 30 days to sign in and forbidden to be in any place where alcoholic drinks are sold, among other things. The security forces, the police, the authorities are watching where you are and waiting for you to commit a breach to be able to prosecute you. I see these alternative measures as forms of punishment that imply restrictions and limitations on your right to inform and be informed.

  In January 2022, I was criminally prosecuted again, under accusations by the National Civil Police of instigating violence during a protest by Indigenous communities in Izabal against the country’s largest active open-pit mine, owned by Solway’s subsidiary Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel. Thirteen police officers accused me of having physically assaulted them, when all I was doing was documenting the moment when security forces repressed people with teargas. Since then I could not continue doing my job as a journalist, nor move around freely, until my lawyers managed to prove to the judge that I really am a journalist and not a criminal. In September the charges against me were dropped. It has been very exhausting: judicial harassment and criminal prosecution have wearing effects.

  What strategies have journalists adopted to be able to continue working?

  Strategies to break through censorship are renewed every day and are often focused on both physical and digital security, particularly concerning the security of documents and files. Local, national and international networking among journalists and alternative and independent media is also very important.

  Such networks have made possible works such as Green Blood, published in 2019, and Mining Secrets, published in 2022. Both were led by Forbidden Stories, an organisation based in France that supports the publication of the work of journalists facing threats, criminalisation and violence in their countries. Green Blood was the result of research conducted in three countries on three continents: Guatemala, India and Tanzania, and looks into the mining industry’s tactics to hinder journalistic work and criminalise those who oppose its practices. Mining Secrets arose from the leak of a huge amount of Solway’s internal files concerning the operation of its Fénix mining project in Izabal. A consortium of 20 media outlets from 15 countries around the world carried out an investigation, with information corroborated by 65 journalists, including the Prensa Comunitaria team I was part of.

  It is all about finding a way to continue doing the work you are doing. Like many others, I do journalism out of passion and conviction. I don’t expect a prize or international recognition. I know that what I am doing is going to help my community and society in general. I believe that shedding light on environmental damage and human rights violations is very important.

  What kind of support do journalists and community media in Guatemala currently receive, and what additional support would they need?

  We receive support mainly in the form of accompaniment: legal accompaniment, accompaniment from human rights organisations and accompaniment from communities and community authorities who support our work.

  This is very important, but much more is needed. A difficulty that criminalised or at-risk journalists experience is that of surviving economically and supporting their families, which is why economic support is important. The same goes for health support, because there are times when, due to all you are going through, your body no longer responds. Finally, it is key to provide opportunities for exchange with other journalist colleagues. It helps a lot to learn about the experiences of others.

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  Civic space in Guatemala is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Follow@CarlosErnesto_C on Twitter.

• GUATEMALA: ‘Our democracy is at risk in the hands of political-criminal networks’

  CIVICUS speaks with Evelyn Recinos Contreras about Guatemala’s general elections – where a candidate promising reform has surprisingly made the second round of the presidential race – and the prospects for democratic change and opening up civic space.

  Evelyn is a former investigator for the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and former advisor to the Attorney General of Guatemala. She is currently living in exile because of her human rights activism.

  What is the state of civic space in Guatemala?

  Civic space in Guatemala is under serious threat. To understand this better, one must understand that, as a consequence of armed conflict, the social fabric is broken. There is hardly any grassroots citizen engagement to speak of. The sectors that for decades served as an engine of social change, such as teachers, trade unionists and high school and public university students, have been irreparably affected by the violence.

  Of these, probably the only grassroots sector that remains organised is Indigenous Mayan peoples, who fight for the defence of their territory and natural resources. In addition, in urban areas, civil society human rights and pro-democracy organisations have organised their work around strengthening democratic institutions, with much emphasis on the issue of justice.

  It is precisely these sectors that are once again being hit by authoritarianism and state violence. In the interior of the country, thousands of community leaders are being criminalised and entire communities are subject to arrest warrants and threatened with criminal prosecution. A similar situation is experienced in urban areas, where the justice system has been captured by political-criminal networks that use state platforms to fund their criminal endeavours and intimidate justice operators, human rights defenders and activists who fight for human rights and the strengthening of civic space and democracy.

  Networks of corruption and impunity affect the democratic space, as evidenced by the fact that people such as Thelma Cabrera of the People’s Liberation Movement were prevented from registering as candidates and participating in the elections.

  What are the causes of Guatemala’s democratic erosion?

  Democracy in Guatemala is being eroded by political-criminal networks that have taken over institutions and use them for their own benefit rather than the wellbeing of the public and the strengthening of democracy. But it has been a gradual and almost imperceptible process. Several key institutions have been weakened, such as the National Civil Police, which is in charge of two main tasks: crime prevention and the maintenance of citizen security, and collaboration in criminal investigations. For years, civil society worked with police commanders to build an institution at the service of democratic security, so that its work would serve to produce a civic space in which citizens could enjoy their fundamental rights and live a dignified life free of violence. But since 2017 we have seen the institution weakened, with commanders being dismissed and resources being misused.

  Similar problems can be found in the judiciary. High courts have not followed their normal process of renewal: they have not held elections for new magistrates. In addition, the last two elections they held were denounced and investigated for acts of corruption. The Public Prosecutor’s Office has also been weakened by a policy of criminal prosecution and criminalisation of justice operators, which has also meant the sidelining of investigation of crimes against life, violence against women and property crimes, which hit citizens hard. Rates of violence and insecurity in Guatemala are almost as high as in countries undergoing internal armed conflicts.

  Do you think that the anti-corruption struggle has failed in Guatemala?

  It is very difficult to provide an absolute answer to the question of the success or failure of the fight against corruption in Guatemala. I think the cases that were brought to trial were supported by evidence and due process was respected. In that sense they were successful. But this was only part of the fight against corruption, because the law provides a limited platform. The damage to society had already been done and resources had already been lost.

  The fight against corruption is only truly successful when there is a level of social involvement that leads to scrutiny of public officials and a sustained demand of accountability. Sadly, we are not there yet.

  For those who have been involved in the fight against corruption, the negative consequences have been obvious. Prosecutors, judges, human rights defenders, activists and community leaders are being persecuted on unfounded charges and pushed towards exile. This sends a strong message of fear to Guatemalan society. But I am convinced that the struggle does not end here. We deserve a country where we can all live in freedom and dignity. The Mayan people have been resisting for more than 500 years, so I think they are our best example to follow.

  Do you think a positive change could come out of this election?

  I believe there is hope. People have shown they are tired of the same murky forces that for years have embodied voracious economic interests that exploit peoples and territories and are characterised by discrimination, double standards and structural violence.

  The fact that one of the contenders in the runoff is the Semilla party, born out of the anti-corruption protests of 2015 and bringing together many people who have never participated in political parties before, is evidence of a desire for change. People rejected the usual political actors who represent archaic economic interests and embody authoritarian and corrupt forms of politics.

  For change to really materialise, we need the international community to turn its eyes to Guatemala. The risk to our democracy at the hands of political-criminal networks must not go unnoticed. We need the international community to draw attention to and speak out about the situation in our country, because the violation of the human rights of Guatemalans affects our shared humanity.

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  Civic space in Guatemala is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

• GUATEMALA: ‘These elections are key because they give us a chance to take a different path’

  CIVICUS speaks with Jordán Rodas Andrade about Guatemala’s general elections – where a candidate promising reform has surprisingly made the second round of the presidential race – and the prospects for democratic change and opening up civic space.

  Jordán Rodas is a lawyer specialising in constitutional guarantees and fundamental rights, transparency and anti-corruption. In addition to being a university professor, in 2015 he was elected vice-president of the Guatemalan Bar Association and between 2017 and 2022 he was Guatemala’s Human Rights Ombudsman. In exercising this role he was repeatedly criminalised and threatened, as a result of which he had to go into exile.

  How have civic space conditions changed in Guatemala in recent years?

  In recent years there has been a very worrying deterioration of civic space in Guatemala, which has worsened under the current president, Alejandro Giammattei. His predecessor, Jimmy Morales, a comedian-turned-president, left very bad practices in place, but these reached extreme levels under Giammattei.

  In recent years, many human rights defenders, land rights defenders, journalists and justice defenders have had to leave our country, forced by a hostile climate of persecution and criminalisation. This closure of spaces and the absence of an independent press have produced fertile ground for the advance of an authoritarian regime. These elections are key because they give us Guatemalans a chance to take a different path for the good of our country.

  What drove you into exile?

  In my five years as prosecutor, I was criminalised with 18 pretrial proceedings, all of which were rejected. It is exhausting to have to constantly defend yourself against such a succession of spurious accusations. Then I had eight requests for removal from office by members of congress, in addition to a crippling financial suffocation.

  Above all, I have witnessed the weakening of justice. Many had to take the difficult decision to leave the country to save their lives, their freedom or their integrity. Among them are Juan Francisco Sandoval, former head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity (FECI), Erika Aifán, an independent judge, Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez and many others who in one way or another touched the heartstrings of political and economic power.

  It is no coincidence that behind the persecution of justice operators and journalists is often the Foundation Against Terrorism, directed by business leader Ricardo Méndez Ruiz, who has been accused by the US government of acts of corruption and acts against democratic institutions. This organisation was a plaintiff in the criminal proceedings against Virginia Laparra, former FECI prosecutor in Quetzaltenango, who has been in prison for more than a year and who should never have been detained for denouncing cases of corruption of a judge. Whistleblowing is not a crime anywhere in the world.

  The same organisation criminally prosecuted José Rubén Zamora, the founder of newspaper elPeriódico, one of the government’s main critics who for years has denounced corruption. Zamora was recently sentenced to six years in prison for several alleged crimes, including money laundering. This sent a very serious message against press freedom. The independent press has had to self-censor and yet it continues to fight this battle.

  I was still in Guatemala when Zamora was captured, and so I decided to distance myself. I left in August but returned in December, by land, to participate in the assembly of the People’s Liberation Movement (MLP), which proclaimed Thelma Cabrera, an Indigenous Maya Mam woman, as its presidential candidate and myself as its vice-presidential candidate. Four years ago, the MLP came in fourth place, but in a context of social malaise in the face of corruption and thanks to its opening up to mestizo people – people of mixed European and Indigenous heritage – I thought it had a good chance of entering the second-round race.

  But my successor in the prosecutor’s office filed a spurious complaint against me, as a result of which our presidential ticket was blocked. I was systematically refused information about the content of the complaint. In other words, this was used to take us out of the race. Since then, I have continued the struggle from exile. This may not be what you want, but it is what you have to do.

  Under what conditions would you decide to return to Guatemala permanently?

  I was just talking about this last week following a work meeting with the Guatemalan state mediated by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). I have been the beneficiary of a precautionary measure from the IACHR since 2017. These measures establish that the state has the obligation to ensure and guarantee a person’s life, integrity, security and liberty, and in my case the state of Guatemala has not complied with it. In order to return, I would need as the minimum that the state does not persecute or criminalise me.

  There are currently two accusations against me, one filed by the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office and another by the Comptroller General’s Office. I have no official knowledge of what the accusations are because I don’t have access to the documents; I have requested them through access to information requests. But it seems to me they are related to the fact that in my declaration of assets I said that I had handed over on 20 August, which is when my constitutionally established term ended, but I left the country on 18 August, leaving the deputy attorney general in charge, as the law dictates. In other words, there was no falsehood or crime. This case is under reserve, and I have asked the state, as a sign of goodwill, not to extend this reserve but to hand over a copy of the complaint so I can defend myself, and to guarantee my life and safety, and that of my family in Guatemala.

  Has the fight against corruption in Guatemala failed?

  The fight against corruption has not failed, but it has stalled as a result of a well-thought-out strategy of a corrupt alliance of political officials and private sector actors.

  However, today more than ever I hope that we will learn the painful but positive lessons from the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which I believe has more lights than shadows. I hope that from that learning we can, sooner rather than later, take up the fight against corruption again.

  International support will continue to be indispensable because our justice system is very porous, permeated by organised crime and lacking institutionality. Three of the nine magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice and several other judges and judicial officials are on the US State Department’s Engel List of people who have committed acts of corruption or have participated in actions to undermine democracy in their countries. Members of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal have been accused of falsifying their doctoral degrees to get elected and the Human Rights Ombudsman was Giammattei’s human rights officer in the prison system at the time he launched ‘Operation Peacock’, a police operation that resulted in a massacre and eventually cost Giammattei 10 months in prison, but also launched its presidential bid. Hence the trust that exists between these two officials.

  But it is clear that people are tired of all this and they showed it at the ballot box on 25 June, when they said no to a return to the past and yes to a proposal that sends a message of hope for the fight against corruption. This was clearly put by the candidate who represents this hope, Bernardo Arévalo, who made it to the second round against all odds.

  Do you consider these elections to have been free and competitive?

  The presidential election was not free and competitive, because a fair election requires not only that there be no fraud on voting day, but also that a series of elements are present throughout the process, from the moment the elections are called. The election was called on 20 January, and on 27 January the state closed the door on us and prevented our participation. Not only did this violate our right to stand for election, but it also restricted citizens’ right to have a full range of options.

  In reaction to this exclusion, Thelma Cabrera called for a null vote, and numbers don’t lie. The null vote actually won, with 17 per cent, a higher share than that received by the candidate who came first, Sandra Torres, who got around 15 per cent. People are clearly fed up.

  The unfairness of the competition also manifested itself in the official party’s handling of public resources and the government’s extremely close relationship with some Supreme Electoral Tribunal magistrates.

  But the fact that Bernardo Arévalo managed to enter the second round is, alongside the mass of null votes, blank votes and abstentions, a sign of enormous rejection of the system. I have high expectations for the second round, in which I hope that the Guatemalan people will participate massively and take advantage of this opportunity to choose a better future.

  What would Guatemala’s new government need to do to put the country back on the road to democracy?

  Above all, the anti-corruption message must be accompanied by real action. Revenge against justice operators must stop, the rule of law must be restored and the freedom of the independent press must be guaranteed.

  The new president should form a cabinet inclusive of progressive sectors. He should convene political parties, social forces and Indigenous peoples’ movements to jointly make a proposal that ensures public policies benefit those most in need.

  The new government should totally dissociate itself from the malpractices of the past and be very careful about power’s temptations. Its responsibility to those who have placed their trust in it must prevail. There will be temptations along the way, so it is essential that it place its bets on people who are ethical, capable and consistent with the values projected in the electoral campaign, as people voted for them because they recognised them first and foremost as an honest party. Bernardo is surely the most interested in honouring the legacy of his father, former president Juan José Arévalo. His government could become a third government of the revolution, taking up and improving on the great achievements of that democratic springtime that took place between 1944 and 1955.

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  Civic space in Guatemala is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with Jordán Rodas through his Facebook or Instagram pages, and follow him on TikTok and Twitter.

• HONDURAS: ‘We demand environmental justice in the face of corrupt interests insensitive to local needs’

  CIVICUS discusses community resistance to mining mega-projects in Honduras with Juana Esquivel, representative of the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa. The committee is made up of local organisations and communities that oppose extractive projects that threaten the environment and common and public goods.

  On 13 June, an open council meeting convened by the Tocoa mayor’s office approved a petroleum coke thermoelectric plant, despite a legal appeal by the local community. It is feared the project will cause deforestation, sedimentation and pollution of the Guapinol River. A similar conflict took place in 2014 when, without consulting communities, the authorities granted permits for a mine in a protected national park affecting the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers. In response to their peaceful protests against the project, many activists were criminalised and eight were imprisoned for long periods.

  Why do you oppose the Tocoa thermoelectric plant project?

  We oppose the thermoelectric plant because its impact on human health and the environment would be devastating. The fact that it is less than 150 metres from some communities significantly increases the risks. But these are not reflected in the environmental impact studies the company presented, which contain deliberate errors that minimise the project’s real damage.

  The plant would use pet coke, a substance derived from coal and oil that is not regulated for energy production in Honduras. It would require huge amounts of water to operate, threatening the drinking water supply of local communities. Waste would be discharged into the Guapinol River, seriously affecting aquatic life and the ecosystem. The company’s studies absurdly claim that the fish in the river will adapt to the warm water coming from the plant.

  Our demands are clear: the project must not go ahead because of its serious environmental and health impacts. We demand that our rights be respected and our environment protected.

  Why did you object to the calling of a public town hall meeting on 13 June?

  Civil society objected to the meeting because of the history of manipulation and lack of transparency in the implementation of mega-projects in the area. The thermoelectric plant is part of a mega-project known as Los Pinares/Ecotek, owned by the Emco Holdings group, which has six other components: two mining concessions in the core zone of the Carlos Escalera National Park, an iron oxide processing plant and three water concessions on the Guapinol, Quebrada de Ceibita and San Pedro rivers.

  The municipality issued a falsified document stating it had carried out a community consultation to validate the project. The project is being presented to the community as a solution to its energy problems, when in fact it is designed to supply energy to the iron oxide processing plant, not the community.

  In December 2023, we attended a public town hall meeting where between 2,500 and 3,000 people expressed their opposition to the project. Faced with this massive opposition, the mayor suspended the event, citing security reasons, and in January he unilaterally called another town hall meeting, without the support of municipal institutions, which was suspended following a legal appeal we filed. Finally, in the town hall meeting of 13 June, the mayor manipulated the situation, holding the open town hall meeting against the will of the community and listening only to those who support the project, who are representatives of boards of trustees controlled by the mining company.

  How has the community organised against this mega-project, and what reprisals have people faced?

  We have been fighting against the Los Pinares/Ecotek mega-project since 2014. We have carried out numerous protests, including holding permanent popular assemblies in front of municipal offices and mass protests. Thanks to these we managed to have Tocoa declared a mining-free municipality and the core zone of the Carlos Escaleras National Park restored.

  In 2018, we set up a camp under the banner ‘For Water and Life’, which lasted 88 days. This direct action triggered a wave of criminalisation and persecution. Repression against environmental activism has been fierce, with 32 prosecutions and eight comrades imprisoned for almost three years.

  Activists have been murdered and there’s a climate of constant threats and harassment. Hundreds of families have been displaced by threats and the use of excessive force by the authorities and armed groups hired by the company.

  Despite these challenges, we continue to fight against the corruption and state and corporate violence that has affected our communities for more than a decade.

  Has thegovernment of President Xiomara Castro fulfilled its promises regarding Guapinol?

  The government’s actions on this issue have been negligent and have exacerbated polarisation and conflict. Although the government has made Guapinol a central issue on its political agenda, the release of imprisoned environmental defenders has been the result of years of community mobilisation and resistance rather than direct intervention by central authorities.

  A significant government debt to Tocoa and Guapinol remains: the complete cancellation of the Los Pinares/Ecotek megaproject. A decree was issued in February 2024 to protect areas of the Carlos Escalera National Park, but it is crucial to ensure its effective implementation and the repair of the environmental damage already caused.

  The community remains vigilant and active, demanding environmental justice and the preservation of its natural resources in the face of corrupt economic and political interests insensitive to local needs.

  Civic space in Honduras is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@guapinolre on Twitter.

• HONDURAS: ‘We must address the roots of the conflict: the handing over of natural resources’

  CIVICUS speaks about the criminalisation of environmental, land and territorial defenders in Honduras with Edy Tábora, director of the law firm Justicia para los Pueblos (Justice for the Peoples) and coordinator of the group of defence lawyers of eight defenders of the Guapinol river who were recently released from detention.

  Why were the Guapinol defenders criminalised?

  The case of the eight Guapinol comrades deprived of their freedom is one of the most revealing expressions of the conflicts around mining and energy and the dispossession of land and natural resources in Honduras. Along with that of Berta Cáceres, the Guapinol case is one of the most significant ones.

  Berta’s case, which culminated in her assassination, was the first in a new wave of criminalisation surrounding dispossession projects following the 2009 military coup. Her case displayed all the typical elements: stigmatisation, surveillance, rupture of the social fabric, criminalisation. The same pattern can be seen in many parts of Honduras.

  After the coup, there was a privately conducted exploration of mineral deposits and businesspeople realised there was a lot of money to be made here. In the case of Guapinol, the process kicked off with the granting of an iron oxide mining concession – one of the largest in the country – to Los Pinares, a holding company registered in Panama, owned by an extremely wealthy Honduran family. Its mining business was developed jointly with the US company Nucor.

  Nucor claims to have withdrawn from the project in late 2019 due to the conflict triggered by the criminalisation of the Guapinol defenders, but there is no evidence of this and we do not believe it to be true. Los Pinares is simply the mining arm of a company whose power comes from airport concessions at home and abroad. It is a company with high-level political connections, and with so much power that in 2013 it succeeded in getting the National Congress to change the delimitation of the core zone of a national park.

  On 22 April 2013, the day before a new mining law came into force, applications were submitted for the two mining concessions related to the Guapinol case, both located in the core zone of the Montaña de Botaderos National Park. This had been declared a national park in 2012, as part of a ‘friendly settlement’ with the relatives of Carlos Escaleras, a social leader and environmental defender active in the 1980s and 1990s, who was assassinated for defending this mountain. The statute of the national park, which bears the name of Carlos Escaleras, prohibited the granting of mining concessions in its core zone and even its buffer zone.

  However, in 2014, engineers began to arrive on the mountain to collect information and check how deep down metal was deposited. People noticed this, began to demand an explanation and organised in the Municipal Committee of Public and Common Goods of Tocoa.

  In June 2016 they began to file complaints; some were filed by the Guapinol defenders who ended up in prison. They requested information from the institutions in charge of granting mining permits but only obtained some information in November 2019, after three years of back and forth. Tired of not getting answers, in June 2018 people started protesting at the Municipality of Tocoa Colón. It was then that systematic surveillance by the national police and Los Pinares security began.

  In August 2018, the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise held press conferences in which it complained to the government about an alleged loss of 20 billion dollars caused by ‘vandals’ protesting in various parts of Honduras.

  Criminalisation was a nationwide strategy, but the criminalisation of the Guapinol comrades was the most serious case. On 8 September 2018, the Public Prosecutor’s Office presented the first accusation against 18 comrades for the crimes of usurpation, damage and usurpation of public space. Los Pinares appeared in the hearings as the accuser. Fourteen comrades were put on trial and all their cases were closed, but the fact that they were accused enabled the illegal eviction, in October 2018, of the Camp for Water and Life, one of many set up around Honduras. This was one of four charges brought by the Public Prosecutor’s Office as part of the strategy to criminalise resistance movements against mining and energy projects.

  In January 2019, in response to a complaint filed by Los Pinares, the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed another indictment against 32 people, including eight Guapinol comrades. The nature of the charges changed: it was no longer about usurpation of public space but about organised crime. Human rights defenders were now treated as taking part in organised crime, with charges including criminal association, theft, damage, unjust deprivation of liberty and aggravated arson. The case was assigned to the Specialised Court for Organised Crime, which meant it was transferred from local to national jurisdiction, in violation of the right to be tried by one’s natural judge. 

  Of the 32, a first group voluntarily submitted to trial in February 2019 and was kept in prison for only 10 days before the accusations against them were dismissed. The Guapinol eight, however, despite having voluntarily submitted to trial, were subjected to arbitrary detention from 26 August 2019 until 24 February 2022, when they finally regained their freedom.

  What did civil society do to secure their release?

  During the pandemic, Guapinol was one of the most high-profile cases globally. Not even the pandemic could stop our comrades’ defence. We quickly moved our activities online, and by late April 2020 we were already filing habeas corpus writs for our comrades’ right to health, alongside international organisations. Even under these conditions, we managed to set up discussions with important organisations, and three months after the pandemic began, we restarted our advocacy work, which meant that by the time the trial started, the case had become very well known around the world.

  Initially the case was promoted by the Coalition Against Impunity, which brings together more than 50 Honduran civil society organisations (CSOs). Later, many CSOs joined a kind of international support group for the case.

  First, we publicly denounced the violence and criminalisation against the Municipal Committee. Second, before our comrades were imprisoned, we documented the irregular granting of concessions for natural resources. Third, alongside several Honduran CSOs, we organised our comrades’ legal defence. A working group was then organised including national and international CSOs to support the defence. A lot of advocacy work was done, both nationally and internationally, to convince the public that this was a very important case and to counter the company’s account of the violence allegedly committed by our comrades.

  Documentary and testimonial work was crucial to expose our comrades’ real activism. We had many meetings with international CSOs. Canadian, US and European organisations and academics reported on the concession and the legal process. International CSOs filed amicus curiae – friend of the court – briefs with Honduran courts. We participated in multiple forums with national and international organisations.

  Many actions converged to create a powerful wave of demands for our comrades’ release. CIVICUS’s and Amnesty International’s campaigns, for example, allowed us to reach wider audiences. When the trial came, the case was widely known, and less than 24 hours after the end of the trial, in which our comrades were convicted with two thirds of the court’s votes, the Supreme Court of Justice annulled the whole process and ordered them to be released.

  This was an unprecedented decision, surely motivated by the strength of the demand for their freedom and by the evidence presented, both in and out of court, which demonstrated that our comrades were innocent and that they fight for a just cause that is of great interest to humanity.

  Are there other cases like the Guapinol case in Honduras?

  There are many defenders criminalised for defending land, including some from the Garífuna people, a marginalised minority, but they are not in prison. Many comrades were also imprisoned for defending democracy in the aftermath of 2017’s electoral fraud: around 30 people were imprisoned in maximum security prisons, but they are currently free. Most pending cases are being closed as a result of an amnesty issued by the National Congress in February 2022.

  In that sense, the Guapinol case was an exception, because this amnesty did not apply to them. What’s important about this case is that we managed to close the process by defending ourselves even with the highly questionable tools offered by the Honduran judicial system.

  However, there were other cases at the same time as Guapinol, such as that of the Indigenous comrades of the Lenca people in the department of La Paz, who were accused of forced displacement. They were imprisoned for more than a year for a crime that is the craziest thing I have ever heard: they were accused of displacing landowners. The Public Prosecutor’s narrative uses the made-up concept of ‘reverse racism’, according to which Indigenous peoples can also commit discrimination against minorities within their communities – the minority in this case being the landowners.

  Do you view Guapinol as part of a pattern of criminalisation against environmental defenders?

  We have detected patterns of criminalisation by sector in the cases we have monitored. For example, between 2011 and 2016 one of the most criminalised sectors was the student movement mobilised in defence of public education. Some 350 students, mostly university students, were criminalised.

  In the case of environmental defenders, we were able to document several patterns of criminalisation. Again and again, prosecutions were initiated only a few days after pronouncements by companies or employers’ organisations. The behaviour of the police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office has also been similar in all cases, with an initial focus on eviction and accusations changing over time following the same pattern. The narrative peddled by companies is always the same as well, often because they share the same lawyers.

  Criminalisation follows different patterns depending on the interests affected. The crimes people are accused of when challenging mining interests differ from those used to dispossess communities of land for the construction of tourism megaprojects or the plantation of African palm in the Atlantic zone, and from those used against peasants claiming access to land and crops.

  However, all the groups criminalised over the past 15 years have something in common: their resistance to the project, promoted since the 2000s, of handing over natural resources to private companies. Land grabbing was politically supported the state following the coup: from that moment on, national regulations were made more flexible to facilitate dispossession and the national police and the security forces of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the judiciary were placed at the service of the private sector, which used them to criminalise land rights defenders.

  Has there been any improvement in the situation of environmental defenders since the new government came to power in January 2022?

  The new government brought several positive changes. First, while we had already achieved the closure of several emblematic cases, it decreed an amnesty that resulted in the closure of most legal proceedings against defenders, although there are still some cases pending.

  Second, the new government has put an end to the state’s stigmatisation of land struggles, which used to make use of information obtained by state security forces. And third, for the time being the government has not tackled conflicts with violence. People who protest are not being repressed.

  In recent years state violence was deployed to manage social protest, private violence was reflected in the assassination of defenders, and hybrid violence was seen in the area of surveillance. Over the four years of the current government we may no longer witness violent management of social protests, but there is a chance that state violence will be replaced by private corporate violence.

  What are the challenges ahead?

  The challenge right now is to address the causes of criminalisation. We have worked to defend and support our comrades criminalised by the state and private companies, but we have never been able to address what’s at the root of the conflict: the handing over of natural resources. Preventing the criminalisation of defenders is a big step, but we must address the issue of concessions, which in fact continue. Approved projects are waiting to be implemented. If we don’t seize the moment to address this problem, then when the government’s political colour changes, private companies will come back stronger and criminalisation will intensify.

  Moreover, social movements are worn out after 12 years of resistance against the handing over of natural resources. There must be accountability, reparations for victims and guarantees of legal security for defenders to be able to do their work. The hostile legal framework for exercising rights and defending human rights that has been established in recent decades must be reversed.

  Civic space in Honduras is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Learn more about the Guapinol case on itswebsite and follow@Edy_Tabora on Twitter.

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