November 3rd, 2015- Cultural Survival congratulates Lorenzo Mateo Francisco as he received an award on behalf of the independent media site Prensa Comunitaria, a small independent news collective covering grassroots social movements and Indigenous Peoples rights in Guatemala.
The Washington DC-based non-profit Guatemala Human Rights Commission presented the award, reporting:
One of Prensa Comunitaria’s regions of focus has been northern Huehuetenango, in the highlands of western Guatemala. The area has experienced growing social conflict over the past several years, particularly around mines and hydroelectric projects. Members of Prensa Comunitaria have provided in-depth investigations, analysis and coverage of local resistance movements, government repression and militarization, attacks against community radio, and the criminalization of community leaders from the region.
Journalism is a dangerous profession in Guatemala. The first six months of 2015 alone saw 59 documented attacks against journalists including the murder of three journalists within one week in March. In this context, correspondents from Prensa Comunitaria have continued to challenge the systems that seek to silence them. Their valuable work represents an ongoing effort to defend the right to freedom of expression and to freedom of the press.
Lorenzo is a manager of community radio station Radio Snuq’ Jolom Konob’, in Santa Eulalia, Huehuetenango and frequent contributor to Prensa Comunitaria. “I want to thank everyone from the international community who supports our communities in Guatemala,’’ began Lorenzo in his acceptance speech. “I come to receive this award in the name of my Prensa Comunitaria family. Yet, I have a deep pain in my heart, because freedom of expression in my country has been criminalized... This recognition encourages us to continue our work the defense of human rights and the rights of Indigenous peoples, which are fundamental to our lives.”
Lorenzo highlighted the persecution his community radio station faces in carrying out their work. In 2013, station co-founder Daniel Pedro Mateo was kidnapped and murdered while on his way to give a training on environmental land rights in neighboring village of Barillas. Another station co-founder Rigoberto Juarez and colleague Domingo Baltazar have been imprisoned on false charges in Guatemala City for over 8 months. The radio station has been off the air since January 2015, when a gang including former Mayor of Santa Eulalia fired shots at the radio volunteers as they covered a local trial outside a courthouse. The mayor placed a padlock on the door to the radio station and threatened station workers, causing many to flee into the surrounding mountains in fear. This case has been part of petition to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights on the criminalization of Freedom of Expression in Guatemala, the subject of a recent hearing in Washington DC. Since March, the station has been able to broadcast online.
Prensa Comunitaria has done exemplary work covering social movements in Guatemala that are frequently ignored or underreported by Guatemala’s mainstream media. Their topic of focus include environmental and land rights activism in La Puya, Santa Cruz Barillas, as well as cases of political prisoners and massacres of Indigenous Peoples. They also covered the recent #RenunciaYa popular uprising that brought the resignation of former President, Vice-President and many cabinet members of Guatemalan government due to an exposed embezzlement scandal in import taxes.
Congratulations to the Prensa Comunitaria team and to Lorenzo Mateo Francisco on behalf of all of us at Cultural Survival.
