Rigoberto Juarez
On 24 March 2015, environmental rights defenders and indigenous leaders Rigoberto Juárez and Domingo Baltazar, from Santa Eulalia, were taken into custody as they completed a lobbying mission to the Human Rights Council of the Public Ministry in Guatemala City. The arrest was based onfalse accusations that stated the defenders were responsible forleading a group of people to destroy equipment belonging to a hydroelectric project in San Luis, jurisdiction of Santa Eulalia, in December 2014. Although they were ordered to be placed under house arrest for these accusations, they were re-arrested on the same day under different accusations, for allegedly organising roadblocks to demand the release of other detainees from Barillas, Huehuetenango.The two human rights defenders remained a total of 486 days in prison before a decision of the High Risk Tribunal A on 22 July 2016 ordered their immediate release.
Since Otto Pérez Molina assumed the role of President in January 2012, cases of harassment and threats against HRDs have been on the rise. 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.
