Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

The imprisonment of journalist and founder of the newspaper ‘elPeriódico’, Jose Rubén Zamora – also a 2023 laureate of RSF’s Press Freedom Prize – has become a flagrant and unavoidable emblem of the press freedom situation in Guatemala.

Reporters Without Borders has documented more than 50 attacks on over 100 journalists who have been killed, injured, kidnapped, taken hostage, tortured or caught up in bombings.

Signatories call on El Salvador’s authorities to respect and protect press freedom and, in particular, to establish favourable and safe long-term conditions guaranteeing the ability of journalists to work freely.

An “invitation to tea” is a summon by authorities often followed by criminal proceedings or arbitrary detention.

Facebook celebrated its 20th anniversary on 4 February, but still has no real safeguards against mass disinformation. RSF calls on the tech giant now called Meta to take urgent measures to protect the right to reliable information on all of its platforms.

The detained journalists were covering a protest near the Kremlin by women demanding that their husbands be brought home from the front in Ukraine.

The imprisonment of José Rubén Zamora is becoming an unavoidable imperative for the new government of Bernardo Arévalo.

“It is imperative that the police apparatus and executive bodies cease the persecution of journalists and the Guatemalan authorities, without delay, release ‘elPeriódico’ publisher Jose Rubén Zamora.”