From the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA:
Gladys Monterroso, lawyer, University professor, and Secretary General of the Encuentro por Guatemala party, and wife of Human Rights Ombudsman Sergio Morales, was kidnapped in Guatemala City on Wednesday March 25 at 7am and released 13 hours later. She was interrogated and burned with cigarettes on different parts of her body; no ransom was demanded.
The Guatemala Human Rights Commission and our Guatemalan partners (including UDEFEGUA, CALDH, CIIDH, GAM, SEDEM, IECCEG and ODHAG) express outrage concerning this attack.
This violent attack occurred just eleven hours after the Human Rights Ombudsman’s release of the first report on the contents of the police archives discovered in 2004.Over 11 million documents were cleaned, scanned, and filed out of over 80 million documents that exist from the 1960-1996 conflict.
The report includes information connecting the Guatemalan National Police to atrocities committed during the war and provided the evidence needed to detain two former members of a police unit linked to death squads that operated during the internal armed conflict. This is the first time that police officers have been detained for involvement in any of the over 47,000 cases of forced disappearances during the 36 year conflict.
GHRC and our Guatemalan partners condemn this violent and criminal act against Gladys Monterroso. We demand that Guatemalan Government authorities and the Public Prosecutor’s Office fully investigate the crime in order to identify, process, and sentence the material and intellectual authors of the crime. We demand that the necessary steps be taken to dismantle the criminal structures that obstruct citizens’ rights, liberties, and guarantees under the Guatemalan Constitution.
Furthermore, we demand immediate protection for Gladys and the Human Rights Ombudsman’s staff throughout Guatemala, to allow them to carry out their work. We also demand protection and guarantees of security for the Historical Archives of the National Police, in order to continue the investigation process linking state entities to crimes of the past. We express our solidarity and concern for Gladys Monterroso, her family, the staff of the Human Rights Ombudsmans Office, and the party leaders of Encuentro por Guatemala.
Click here to send a message to the Guatemalan government calling on authorities to investigate the kidnapping, torture, and attack on Gladys Monterroso, process and sentence those responsible, provide protection for Gladys and the PDH staff, and provide protection for the Historical Archives.
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