Maya Ch'orti' Indigenous Council of Olopa
The Indigenous Council is an ancestral organisation that defends the land and territory from extractive economic activities, and claims and promotes under its own autonomy the individual and collective rights of the Maya Ch'orti' people. Since 2016, several communities have been peacefully resisting the mining company Cantera Los Manatiales. Santos Gerónimo Ramos Méndez and Rosa Margarita Pérez Canán also work to defend and promote the rights of indigenous people in the department of Chiquimula.
Human rights defenders (HRDs) in Guatemala are subjected to death threats, physical attacks, acts of harassment, surveillance, stigmatisation, judicial harassment, arbitrary detention, forced disappearance and killings. Many of the violations are carried out by clandestine security structures and illegal groups. The exceptionally high level of impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators increases the risk exponentially for HRDs.
