This week the last report of reporters without borders (RSF) was made public, with the World Classification of Press 2025. Guatemala, although it improved, it is generally still in a risk position.
The report qualifies Guatemala as “hostile land” for journalistic practice. It puts a warning signal to judicial persecution and homicide against reporters.
Artur Romeu, director for Latin America of RSF, during an interview with Press Libre, deepened a little more on the situation of the country and the effects that the deterioration of press freedom for democracy can have.
There is an improvement in the Ranquin for Guatemala. How should that be interpreted?
Guatemala is very particular this year. When one looks at the indicators in isolation, we see how the political indicator, for example, that captures the perception of the conditions that occur to exercise journalism with editorial independence without interference of public authorities or state agencies has improved, but the other indicators have not done so, and even some have worsened or remain stable.
A clear example is the situation of Jose Rubén Zamora, who is still detained despite all the political pressure exercise that even the president of the country did.
But there are other things, such as the sustainability of the media, labor precariousness and the conditions of protection and security of journalists, who are in a very bad situation, and Guatemala is among the countries that appear in the classification as a difficult country to exercise journalism.
The report qualifies Guatemala as “hostile land.” Is it for those indicators that you mention?
I will be more surgical. There is the sociocultural indicator, which is one of the five that are associated with the report and, in the case of Guatemala, they reflect that there are hatred campaigns against journalists, there is a reporters’ self -censorship, of the media when they are covering issues that involve public authorities, religious institutions and environmental crimes, for example.
In that indicator, the sociocultural, Guatemala is worse and reflects that hostile scenario.
Is there criminalization to journalists, according to the report?
I think it is a key aspect of the discussion of journalism in Guatemala. One thing is that journalists talk about these hostile land to work, but we are convinced that journalism goes beyond the interests that journalists have.
What impact does the deterioration of press freedom have for citizenship?
Many times, when we are talking about press freedom, it is understood that we are talking about protecting a journalist, a medium, with a slightly more corporatist logic, but I want to insist that the work we are doing has nothing to do, or almost nothing to do in that case, with defending journalists and media.
We are talking about defending the right of citizens to inform themselves, to have access to free, plural and truthful information.
The right to press freedom is a right that is in symbiosis with other rights, such as the right to health, the right to work, the right to housing, the right to healthy environment. That is, there is a symbiosis in the sense that we need to be well informed about different aspects of our life to be able to do public pressure.
And the case of Jose Rubén Zamora and the other journalists who are in exile to what degree do they affect?
Specifically in the case of Zamora, we have a symbol, that is, his situation is a monument to the deterioration of the fragile situation of press freedom, even of democracy in Guatemala.
And in that line is that we are getting to speak right now. The report also highlights that there is a financial and editorial crisis in the media, not of Guatemala, of the continent.
How does this financial crisis affect the free exercise of journalism?
In 160 of the 180 countries evaluated, they respond that it is difficult or very difficult for the media to reach financial sustainability; We are talking about more than 80 percent of the countries in the world that recognize that financial stability has become an existential challenge.
We cannot stop seeing these structural conditions for the exercise of journalism as aspects that threaten the guarantee of the right to press freedom.
What to expect for Guatemala if a corrective is not applied to those threats?
Guatemala’s situation is politically quite complex, with the permanent tension between the Executive Power and the Judiciary, the Public Ministry in particular.
The recommendation is that it is necessary to have courage and political will to be able to address human rights issues with a strong That is, it is a harassment what is happening.