Catholic priest José Enrique Vásquez left his mother’s house after a visit at 10am on March 2, returning to his parish in San Pedro Sula, Cortés Department, for Ash Wednesday religious services. He never showed up. At 10pm that night, his lifeless body was entered at the morgue as an unknown person. There were six bullet wounds in his body, including two in the head and two in the chest.
As the head of Guatemala’s High-Risk Tribunal D, a court specialized in handling complex high-stakes criminal cases, Erika Aifán spent six years trying dozens of the most powerful business people, politicians, judges, and capos of Guatemala on charges of corruption, money laundering, and drug trafficking. For that work she has faced constant threats, espionage, and judicial persecution. In February, El Faro revealed that a witness in her court accused President Alejandro Giammattei of financing his electoral campaign with $2.6 million in bribes from construction firms. It was reason enough for Attorney General Consuelo Porras, converted into Giammattei’s enforcer, to file seven motions to repeal Aifán’s judicial immunity from prosecution and look to incarcerate the judge who may otherwise have put the president of Guatemala behind bars. In the evening on Wednesday, March 9, and without warning her team of bodyguards, Erika Aifán crossed the land border into El Salvador to fly via Costa Rica to the United States. This morning her attorneys formally tendered her resignation from the Guatemalan judiciary. Her departure makes fifteen justice system operators to have abandoned Guatemala in the last 11 months.
The Title 42 expulsion policy — issued just days after COVID-19 began taking its grip on the U.S. — has driven a wedge between the Biden administration and immigrant communities, many of whom see its continued implementation as a broken campaign promise. As the Biden administration oversees the two-year anniversary of Title 42, it has given little sign it intends to lift the Trump-era policy that cites the pandemic as a reason to summarily expel asylum-seekers, even amid increasing pressure from members of its own party.
The 22nd Annual Social Justice Teach-In is a great opportunity for high school and college students--as well as people of all ages-- to learn about critical human rights issues. The theme for the 2022 Teach-In is Liberation Lab: A Social Justice Teach-In on Abolition and Environmental Justice. Attendees will be invited to attend different sequential panels that focus on grief, empathy, apathy, and, of course, liberation–and much more. Between the main sessions of panel presenters, participants will go into small breakout rooms so that they can share and reflect on what they’ve just heard. We are training volunteers to facilitate these break-out sessions.
This symposium will explore some of the ways in which racial hierarchies and subordination are present in American policing. Since the early 1970s, some law enforcement scholars, politicians and reformists have presupposed that increasing the number of Black officers on the force could be an important tool to improving relations between police departments and communities of color. The national conversation around the myriad of continued problems in policing during the Racial Reckoning of 2020 revealed continued instances of racial discrimination endured by Black police officers inside and outside of their departments. While affinity law enforcement associations began in an effort to support and empower officers from underrepresented racial groups, those groups often lack collective bargaining rights or mechanisms by which to support the interests of their members.
Symposium presenters will explore the historical role of racism in American policing, Indian policing, disparate officer discipline outcomes, the intersection of use of force and race, the impact of arbitration on police reform, how gender impacts the rate of reported crimes, potential solutions for a transformational path forward, and other related topics.
Advocates for migrants said the DHS guidance for Ukrainians [allowing Title 42 exemptions] showed unequal and discriminatory treatment of asylum-seekers based on their countries of origin, which is barred under international refugee law. "While it is heartening to see DHS acknowledge that they don't have to turn away asylum-seekers, that hasn't been applied to people from other countries," said Kennji Kizuka, an associate director at Human Rights First, a U.S. advocacy group. "Where were the exemptions for Haitian asylum-seekers arriving last fall?" Kizuka continued. "Where are those exemptions for Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan asylum-seekers, for asylum-seekers from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras?"
Letter to the DFC, expressing our alarm and concern about the rapid deterioration of the rule of law in Guatemala and the implications of this deterioration for investments by the Development Finance Corporation. We are aware that in January 2020 Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei signed a memorandum of understanding with the DFC, aiming to catalyze private sector investment of up to $1 billion over three years in support of development in Guatemala. The Guatemala of today, however, is markedly different than the Guatemala of two years ago. Accordingly, we believe the DFC should revisit its investment plans with respect to Guatemala.
The country’s Supreme Court of Justice said late Wednesday via Twitter that the judge had decided to grant the U.S. extradition request. Hernández has maintained that statements against him have been made by drug traffickers extradited by his government who wanted to seek revenge against him. He denies having any ties to drug traffickers.
Watch the Recording of our first session of our four-part Honduras Solidarity Webinar Series on March 15, and join us for the remaining three sessions the following Tuesdays!
The night of March 16 in Tegucigalpa, members and sympathizers of the National Party caused riots outside the Supreme Court of Justice and set fire to the Viva Berta Feminist Camp. The camp was set up under the coordination of comrades from the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras, COPINH, and OFRANEH, together with various organizations and communities in struggle. We denounce this attack whose only intention is to attack the actions of justice for women and peoples and we stand in solidarity with the comrades of COPINH, OFRANEH, as well as with the various organizations and communities that make up this space of struggle.
