The commitment to the fight to “reveal the corruption and human rights abuses that have devastated Guatemala” that the Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora has embodied in his country for more than three decades has received the 2024 Recognition of Excellence from the Foundation Gabo. The award made public this Tuesday through a statement from the institution and which honors the memory of Gabriel García Márquez has gone to the founder and director of The newspaper, who remains imprisoned in his country for more than 600 days. “I am serene, calm. Ready to spend three months or 100 years here,” he told EL PAÍS last February during an interview of more than three hours in his cell at the Mariscal Zavala barracks in Guatemala City.
Zamora remains in prison at 67 years old after a six-year sentence for an accusation of money laundering that he has always denied. Various international bodies denounced “numerous violations of international and regional norms” in his trial, pending repetition after a Guatemalan appeals chamber annulled the journalist’s sentence last October. The fierce columns of him in The newspaper They revealed corruption and abuse of power in their country. This newspaper is a journalistic emblem with almost 27 years of life in which the crimes perpetrated by the corrupt power in Guatemala have been reflected, as well as the crimes committed in the 36 years of bloody Civil War.
It was with the Government of Alejandro Giammattei when Zamora brought to light two hundred investigations that revealed the level of corruption in his country that affected the president’s environment. On July 29, 2022, the journalist was arrested and the newspaper’s offices were raided. The newspaper, Founded in 1996, it closed a year ago. And its director has remained in jail to this day. The first months of captivity were a succession of torture during his stay in a cell without light where he spent 23 hours a day. This is how his life went until Bernardo Arévalo came to power at the beginning of this year. His conditions in prison have changed and today he occupies a small cell with a bathroom in which he lives surrounded by books and photographs of his loved ones.
The award announced this Tuesday is the result of the virtual meeting held on March 11 between the Governing Council of the institution, formed by Leila Guerriero, Martín Caparrós, Natalia Viana, Rosental Alves, Mónica González, Germán Rey, María Jesús Espinosa de los Monteros, Jon Lee Anderson, Carmen Aristegui, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, Sergio Ramírez, Héctor Feliciano and Luz Mely Reyes. They were joined by the Foundation team led by its general director, Jaime Abello Banfi.
Grandson of Clemente Marroquín, a renowned journalist in his country during the 1920s, José Rubén Zamora studied Industrial Engineering and Finance. The harassment of his grandfather, founder of the newspaper ‘La Hora’, mitigated the journalistic ardor to which he ended up giving in. After managing the Telenoticiero Seven days At the end of the 80s, he founded the first investigative journalistic outlet in Guatemala in the following decade: ‘Siglo Veintiuno’. For six years, Zamora’s management received the support of businessmen who withdrew it when the media revealed abuses and violations of Human Rights committed by the military. Already then he had to face government censorship, suffering kidnappings, beatings and attacks. And international recognition also came to his work, such as the María Moors Cabot Award and the CPJ International Press Freedom Award in the mid-nineties. Years later, he was included in the International Press Institute’s list of 50 “International Heroes of Freedom of Expression.” Among his achievements is also the denunciation of the abuses committed by the president and former head of Intelligence of the Guatemalan Army Otto Pérez Molina, who left power in 2015.
“What greater sign of excellence than that of a journalist who has dedicated more than 30 years to investigating corruption in his country with a democracy in suspense?” argues the Gabo Foundation on the occasion of the recognition of José Rubén Zamora. “What better example of excellence than that of an investigative journalist who persists in his work after being kidnapped, tortured and stripped of his dignity in front of his family, even subjected to a mock execution?” . The institution concludes: “he is a symbol of the democratic crossroads that Guatemala and other Latin American countries are going through. He is a fervent call to seek new ways to protect freedom of the press in our societies and to vindicate good journalism, an exercise inseparable from democratic life.
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