
This piece originally appeared in El Faro English
Anastasia Mejía was already uneasy by the time the authorities reached her door last September. An indigenous Maya journalist in the rural Guatemalan department of Quiché, and a prominent woman in a community stained by widespread sexism and a country known for its anti-indigenous racism, Mejía had no shortage of antagonists. But after reporting on an August 2020 protest against the mayor of Joyabaj, accused of corruption, which devolved into the sacking of a municipal government building, she’d felt more on edge than usual. The arrival of the National Civil Police to her house on September 22 confirmed the worst of her fears: she was accused of participating in the disturbance she’d reported on and, alongside twelve participants, was being charged with sedition, arson, aggravated assault and robbery.
It was the beginning of an ongoing nightmare for Mejía. Confined to conditional house arrest, the court forbade her from writing about or approaching the mayor against whom the protest was staged over half a year ago and from leaving the department of Quiché.
“It’s a way of continuing to silence me,” Mejia said last December. For seven years, she’d been able to use the radio equipment, installed on a rickety wood table in her house, to report on the protests and steadily mounting corruption allegations against Florencio Carrascoza. Now, according to the terms of her arrest and release, saying even a word about him would send her straight back to jail.
Continue reading “Guatemalan Indigenous Journalist Censured for Reporting on a Protest”