IAPA urges Guatemala to pursue investigation into attack on journalist

“The identification of the assailants leads us to believe that public officials and politicians from the prior regime were involved, and we therefore urge the current government to carry out an impartial investigation to determine responsibility under the law in order to prevent a culture of violence, state terrorism and impunity from taking precedence over freedom of expression,” said Rafael Molina, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information.

Zamora gave local news media the names of a number of people he said were among his assailants – Presidential Guard (EMP) Sergeant Major Eduviges Funes Valásquez; former EMP member Belter Armando Alvarez Castillo; chief of the Public Prosecutor’s Office Erick Alexander Johnston Barrera, and National Civil Police counter-intelligence agent Iris Edith Soto López – all belonging to state agencies.

The newspaper of which Zamora is editor is well known in Guatemala for its exposures of corruption, human rights violations and drug-trafficking, and it was because of this that from the outset the attack was believed to have meant to be a warning to him, although the attorney general sought to promote the theory that it was a self-staged event.