IRTF News

For two decades, the 68-yar-old award-winning anti-corruption journalist José Rubén Zamora has been subjected to threats, physical violence, and now false criminalization and detention.

In June 2003, Zamora and his family were held hostage in their home in Guatemala City for hours by a group of assailants who beat Zamora's children and forced him to strip and kneel at gunpoint.  In August 2008, Zamora was kidnapped and beaten after a dinner with friends and was left unconscious and nearly naked in Chimaltenango, about 16 miles away. Due to the threats he faced as a journalist, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) ordered precautionary (protective) measures for him twenty years ago.

In July 2022—five days after local media outlets published strong criticism of various officials of President Giammattei’s administration involved in corruption—Zamora was detained after an arrest on questionable charges of money laundering, blackmail, and influence peddling. Following reports of torture and solitary confinement and an international campaign calling for his release, a judge finally ordered him to house arrest in May 2024. But prosecutors persisted, and because of subsequent appeals court proceedings, he remained in pretrial detention until October 2024, having been detained for more than 800 days.  Then after only four months of house arrest, an appeals court sent Jose Rubén Zamora to Mariscal Zavala prison on March 10, 2025.

The renewed detention of Jose Rubén Zamora is clearly an attack on the freedom and integrity of the press. His persecution and arbitrary detention are deeply distressing and, sadly, exemplifies the criminalization of journalists, environmental defenders and other social leaders who are working for justice in Guatemala.

In the highlands of Izabal Department, the courts are siding with influential landowners who are contesting  ancestral claims of Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ communities. (It is also worth noting, as we did in our letter to authorities on April 14, 2025, that many of these same communities that are involved in land disputes are also resisting the expansion of large-scale metallic mining.)

For three days in a row (March 5-7), the National Civilian Police (PNC) fired gunshots in the Maya Q'eqchi' community of Río Tebernal, Livingston municipality. They forcibly removed a few dozen families from their homes.  The living conditions of the families post-eviction are dire. Between March 18 and April 7, observers from a Costa Rican human rights commission documented lack of food, drinking water, electricity, healthcare, and children’s education.

Authorities are also criminalizing land defenders. On March 15, Luis Xol Caal, a leader from the Q’eqchi’ community of Chaab’il Ch’och’ (also in Livingston municipality), was arrested by the National Civil Police (PNC) on false charges of aggravated usurpation, threats, and illegal detention. Luis Xol Caal, a member of the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA), was detained despite the fact that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) had previously granted precautionary measures to his community, which is situated near the Chocón Machacas nature reserve and with access to the Caribbean Sea. In 2018, community residents testified before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that the private individuals who are claiming land ownership had been using their land for drug trafficking.

We are urging that authorities end the practice of enforced eviction while land rights are still being disputed in the court system. We also urge that they end the criminalization of land defenders.

The government is falsely criminalizing those whose work is to expose and challenge abuses by the state. It’s a blatant attempt to silence them.

The Courts Against Organized Crime are, according to the government, reserved for gang members. Yet the charges of agrupaciones ilícitas  (illicit groupings) brought forth against human rights attorneys Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya by the Attorney General's Office (FGR) and the National Civilian Police (PNC) place them in this court, where they are scheduled to appear on May 5. Their criminal proceedings jeopardize the right to legal defense of the inhabitants of La Floresta. As we wrote in our RRN letter of 13 APR 2025, 24 community leaders from La Floresta have been falsely charged them with usurpation of property, irregular marketing of subdivision parcels, illegal restriction of movement, and aggravated threats connected with illegal criminal groups (i.e., gangs). Also arrested and imprisoned is Fidel Zavala, spokesperson for UNIDEHC (Human and Community Rights Defense Unit of El Salvador), which is supporting La Floresta.

We are urging that the government: 1) release Fidel Zavala from detention and drop all spurious charges against the residents of La Floresta and members of UNHIDEC, including attorneys Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya; 2) uphold the right to due process and defense for all of those being criminally charged; 3) respect the right to free association as stated in Article 7 of the Salvadoran constitution; 4) stop the misuse of criminal law to persecute political, social and community leaders who engage in the legitimate defense of human rights

On the same day of the forced disappearance of Max Castillo (cf our letter 15 APR 2025), the brother of the community council president of Punta Piedra (a Garífuna community along the Atlantic coast in Colón Department), another Garífuna community, El Triunfo de la Cruz (Atlántida Department) faced an incursion. On April 12, two buses carrying armed individuals—allegedly hired to “clear” land—arrived in the community. Fortunately, residents were successful in their resistance and turned them away. But then on April 14, community leaders of El Triunfo de la Cruz received voice messages containing direct threats—as did prominent Garífuna leader Miriam Miranda. The threats came from an individual claiming to be a bodyguard for an investor tied to a tourism complex illegally situated within Garífuna territory—land that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled must be restored to the community.  

These attacks follow a well-documented pattern of repression that strategically coincides with Garífuna mobilizations and symbolic actions—such as the recent symbolic funeral for the CIANCSI (Intersectoral Commission for the Compliance with International Sentences), held to protest the State's failure to implement international rulings in their favor. The Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) has rightfully described this as a synchronized cycle of terror aimed at silencing community demands and halting the recovery of ancestral lands. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has already warned that this violence will persist as long as the Honduran State refuses to uphold international legal mandates.

The Garífuna, an Afro-Indigenous people with a profound historical and cultural presence in Honduras, continue to be targeted for defending their rights to territory, culture, and life. Despite legal victories, the Honduran government has failed to implement structural reforms or offer protection for these communities.

On April 10, the Garífuna community, which lives primarily along the Atlantic coast, led mobilization in the nation’s capial,  Tegucigalpa. They demanded that the Honduran government comply with binding rulings issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2015, 2023)  in favor of three Garífuna communities in Colón (Punta Piedra) and Atlántida (Triunfo de la Cruz, San Juan). 

Barely two days later, in the early morning hours of April 12, Max Gil Castillo Mejía, brother of the president of the community council of Punta Piedra was kidnapped from his home in San Pedro Sula (Cortés Department) by armed individuals who identified themselves as police officers. Just two days later, prominent Garífuna leader Miriam Miranda and other members of the Garífuna community of El Triunfo de la Cruz received threats.

Silencing Indigenous and Afro-descendant voices through fear and violence is a violation not only of human dignity but of binding international commitments.  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has already warned that this violence will persist as long as the Honduran State refuses to uphold international legal mandates. IRTF calls on the government of Honduras to implement the rulings of the Inter-American Court to ensure that justice, reparations, and peace are no longer deferred for the Garífuna people.

The harms caused by metallic mining are well-known to the communities of Panzos, Livingston, and El Estor in the Maya Q’eqchi’ region of the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range. For sixty years, they have been exposed to the pollution caused by the El Fénix nickel mine in El Estor. It was finally in December 2023 when the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the government of Guatemala is responsible for human rights violations (threats, assaults, killings) and ordered reparation measures.  The following year, Hudbay Minerals Inc. (which owned the El Fénix mine from 2008 to 2011) resolved a decade-long lawsuit brought by victims’ families in a court in Toronto, Canada involving assassination and sexual assault.

When Maya Q’eqchi’ communities learned that Canada-based CAN (Central America Nickel) was seeking to expand mining, they mobilized. On April 7, more than 50 communities came out to start a several day blockade of a main highway in protest. Local municipal officials are also opposed to mining expansions.

IRTF echoes the demand of the local Maya Q’eqchi’ communities to: 1) suspend all mining operations in the Santa Cruz region; 2) form a commission to investigate harms against the Q’eqchi’ people and the environment between 2004-2024 resulting from mining operations; 3) devise a plan for reparations for past harms; and 4) implement a consultation process, based on prior and complete information in the Q'eqchi' language (as required by national and international law, the ILO Convention 169) to decide if mining operations will continue into the future.

Since the implementation of the State of Exception in March 2022, authorities in El Salvador have adopted measures that reflect a widespread pattern of state abuse, including thousands of arbitrary detentions, the systematic use of torture in detention centers, and hundreds of deaths in state custody. Community activists and other human rights defenders are being swept up in the dragnet of mass arrests.

The rural community of La Floresta (in San Juan Opico municipality, La Libertad Department), has been facing eviction threats that could displace over a hundred families, many of whom have lived in the area for more than a decade. UNIDEHC (Unity of Defense for Human and Community Rights) has been providing legal support to the community in its struggle for land rights. In February, the National Civilian Police (PNC) arrested La Floresta community leaders Medardo Rodríguez and Alejandra Cañas. Two weeks later, they arrested José Alberto Pérez Ramírez and María Margarita Flamenco, two members of the community steering council. More than 20 residents of La Floresta have now been arrested and falsely charged with land ursurpation. Police also raided the home of the UNIDEHC director and the organization’s headquarters, arresting its spokesperson Fidel Zavala.

After starting judicial proceedings against Fidel Zavala and the others in March, he was transferred to the notorious Mariona Prison in early April. This is of particular concern because Fidel Zavala has previously denounced torture or other ill-treatment in penitentiary centers, including the abusive treatment of detainees by prison guards at Mariona. We are deeply concerned for his physical and mental well-being. We demand that he be immediately released.

After the Peace Accords were signed between the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the national government, some factions of the FARC (“dissidents”) broke off into other armed bands, rejecting the peace deal. They continue to manipulate vulnerable communities for armed political objectives, endangering civilians in ways that violate international humanitarian law.

In several rural zones of Cauca Department, the Residual Armed Organized Group (GAOr) Carlos Patiño (FARC dissidents) are deeply involved in drug trafficking, extortion, and environmental destruction, particularly in the Micay River basin. Last month, because of the presence of the National Army in Argelia municipality, a commander of the the GAOr threatened the local campesinos if they did not work with the GAOr to violently expel the soldiers. In a radio communication, he said: “…gather everyone around, and if anyone doesn't want to leave, shoot them and they'll be hidden from the military.” If the civilians did not join the GAOr in setting fire to Army armored vehicles, he further threatened to halt the purchase of coca leaves from the campesinos—whose livelihoods depend heavily on coca cultivation—if they did not violently confront the military presence in the region.

This manipulation of vulnerable communities for armed political objectives is unacceptable. We are urging that government authorities consult with local civilian leaders to create protection schemes to ensure that they are not subjected to collective punishment, manipulation, or coercion by any armed actors. We additionally urge that the government strengthen civilian institutions and implement lasting, community-centered alternatives to coca cultivation in the region.

Indigenous Women for the Conservation, Research, and Use of Natural Resources

Danger to social leaders is real in Oaxaca, the state with the fifth highest number of attacks on human rights defenders and journalists. Sandra Domínguez, an Indigenous Zapotec activist who had denounced Oaxacan government leaders, was disappeared a few months ago.

On February 27, while she was away at an intergenerational human rights workshop, the home of Zapotec defender Silvia Pérez Yescas was burgaled and her computer equipment stolen.  She had already been forcibly displaced from her home for more than a year because she fears physical assault should she return. As the founder of Indigenous Women for the Conservation, Research, and Use of Natural Resources (CIARENA, AC), she and others with CIARENA decided to close the office temporarily out of safety concerns.

We are urging that top officials in Oaxaca request that the National Mechanism for Women Human Rights Defenders strengthen protection measures and guarantee the safety of the members of CIARENA.