Opinion Jos Rubn Zamora is unjustly imprisoned. It's time to free him.

[Judi Lynn]

By José Carlos Zamora
March 14, 2023 at 6:15 a.m. EDT



Journalist José Rubén Zamora, left, accompanied by his son José, leaves a court hearing in Guatemala City. (Moises Castillo/AP)

José Carlos Zamora is a journalist and longtime media executive in the United States. He serves as chief communications officer at Exile Content.

. . .

José Rubén Zamora has been in prison in Guatemala for 228 days. He has been charged with money laundering, blackmail and influence peddling and is awaiting trial. His real crime, however, has been investigating and publicizing 144 cases of corruption during the first 144 weeks of Giammattei’s term.

But the persecution of my father was not merely the result of some vendetta by the well-connected. It is part of a coordinated campaign to crush journalism in the country.

Ever since Guatemala emerged from military dictatorship and adopted a democratic constitution in 1985, each administration has outdone its predecessor when it comes to corrupt practices. Giammattei’s government, inaugurated in 2020, has stayed true to form, keeping the country near the bottom of Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index. But his administration has further distinguished itself from previous ones by conducting systematic attacks on the democratic institutions of Guatemala, persecuting anyone who tries to fight corruption or promote liberty and the rule of law.

In the late afternoon of July 29, 2022, police raided my father’s home. My children, who are U.S. citizens, were visiting their grandparents at the time and were illegally detained for over six hours. My father, a 5-foot-9, 140-pound, 66-year-old man, would have peacefully turned himself in if required by the authorities. Instead, after midnight that same night, he was transported in a caravan of pickup trucks to Guatemala’s main court building — a show of force usually reserved for big narcos — even though the raid yielded no evidence.

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/14/zamora-prison-release-guatemala/

Or:

https://archive.ph/CydHF