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Police raid Mayan radio station Xyaab' Tzuultaq'a in eastern Guatemala
September 30, 2019 3:25 PM ET
Amsterdam, September 30, 2019 -- Guatemalan authorities should refrain from conducting raids on news outlets and allow the Xyaab’ Tzuultaq’a radio station to report freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
On September 26, police officers accompanied by soldiers from the nation’s army and officials from the Public Ministry raided the offices of Mayan community radio station Xyaab’ Tzuultaq’a, in El Estor, in Guatemala’s eastern Izabal department, according to news reports.
Izabal, along with five other departments, has been the subject of intense police and military activity since the nation’s Congress declared a state of siege on September 7, thereby suspending constitutional freedoms such as the rights of assembly and protest, after several soldiers were killed by suspected drug traffickers, according to a report by Reuters.
Soon after the state of siege began, the staff of Xyaab’ Tzuultaq’a removed equipment and documents from the radio station’s office in anticipation of a police raid, according to the station’s director, Robin Macloni, who spoke to CPJ via phone. No one was present in the station at the time of the raid and police did not appear to have confiscated anything, Macloni said.
“It is deeply concerning that Guatemalan authorities are harassing and seeking to silence vital sources of information for citizens living under this restrictive state of siege. The right to inform must always be respected,” said CPJ Central and South America Program Coordinator Natalie Southwick in New York. "Guatemalan police should provide an official explanation for their raid on Xyaab’ Tzuultaq’a, and allow them and other media in the region to work safely and without obstruction.”
More:
https://cpj.org/2019/09/police-raid-mayan-radio-station-xyaab-tzuultaqa-in.php
(In earlier days, the gov't did the same things to the Mayan population, only they claimed the Mayan people were leftists, commies, supporters of terrorists. Very old story. The accusations chance from time to time, the victims, or suriviors of victims remain the same.)
