HRW considers that the Prosecutor’s Office is carrying out “spurious criminal charges” against independent journalists, prosecutors and judges, or against indigenous leaders Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán, arrested on April 23 and charged with charges related to terrorism.
The human rights organization suggests to the EU that extends its sanctions by freezing assets or the prohibition of travel to those officials “responsible for undermining democracy and the rule of law in Guatemala”.
Specifically, HRW asks the head of European diplomacy that these sanctions “extend to congressmen Felipe Alejos and Álvaro Arzú; the regional prosecutor Dimas Jiménez; the judge of the Supreme Court Luis Mauricio Corado and the criminal judges Carol Patricia Flores, Jimi Rodolfo Bremer and Víctor Manuel Cruz”.
In addition, he asks Kallas to follow the situation of human rights in the country closely, increase his help to independent civil society agencies, monitor the open judicial process against Pacheco and Chaclán and “work together with other Latin American governments to condemn the decisions of the Attorney General’s Office”.
Arzú deputy is pronounced
Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Deputy Álvaro Arzú referred to the Charter of Human Right Watch in which they ask for sanctions against him and other deputies.
“Very surprised by the level of lies and falsehoods that they include in that document,” he said.
He added: “I am struck that they try to include me within a subject for the arrest of a vice minister who belonged to the 48 cantons, as if I had something to see on that subject, they get me within that context.”
He said that HRW has accused him “with false information from the Government of Guatemala through his official media in a note that they do not even mention me. As if we are trying to remove the Board of Directors and give Bernardo Arévalo, I do not know in what language to explain to them that this is not a coup d’etat”.
He said he will act by sending letters to the EU, to the United Nations Rapporteur and the United States Embassy.
“They say that they took the visa in 2023 and it is true, which they do not say that they already returned it to me and it was already three times to the United States, that visa revocation was already resolved,” he said.
Arzú said he will request a public meeting with HRW to explain that what they say is false and that “if they do not retract that statement I am going to file an international demand against them.”