Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA

Human Rights Lawyer Threatened

January 7, 2005

UA 05/05 Fear for safety/death threats

GUATEMALA Armando Sanchez (m), lawyer

Lawyer Armando Sanchez has received a death threat, in what appears to be an effort to force him to stop representing clients in one of several cases he has taken up, some of which involve local government officials and drug traffickers. Amnesty International believes he is in grave danger. On 23 December an anonymous caller to Armando Sanchez's mobile phone told him he would be killed if he did not leave the country within five days. He reported the death threat and was given 24-hour police protection.

At 2am on 26 December, three men came to the area where he lives, knocked on a neighbor's door and asked where Armando Sanchez's house was. They did not approach the house, as there were two police officers outside. This 24-hour police protection lasted for approximately a week, and has since been reduced to three hours per night, approximately 9-12pm. However, the police failed to provide protection on the night of 6 January, despite agreeing to do so. Armando Sanchez has been representing people involved in several cases, which could have given rise to the death threat he has received. They include a local human rights organization, which has accused local government officials of complicity in helping a murder suspect escape; a woman whose husband was allegedly murdered by drug traffickers; and labor disputes between farmers and their employers.These include illegal dismissals, failure to pay the minimum wage or labor entitlements, overdue payment of wages and evictions of peasant farmers from two local farms.

In August 2004 he filed a complaint against local police, alleging they had unlawfully closed a right-of-way in the town where he lives and works, Coatepeque, in the department of Quetzaltenango, in the east of the country. After he filed the complaint the local prosecutor charged him with coercion and incitacion a delinquir (incitement to commit an offence). Amnesty International considers the charges to be unfounded, and an attempt to prevent him carrying out his work.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION Lawyers representing people who allege official corruption, or pursue claims against drug trafficking, or defend peasant farmers involved in labor disputes, have been systematically intimidated in an attempt to make them give up their work. During 2004 two lawyers, a magistrate and a judge were killed in Guatemala in what appeared to be an effort to stop them carrying out their work. Numerous other lawyers and witnesses have received death threats because of their involvement in trials or complaints implicating government officials in corruption or other criminal charges. Congress member Nineth Montenegro received a death threat in November 2004, apparently linked to her work investigating corruption among high-ranking military officers (see UA 326/04, 30 November 2004). Spurious criminal charges have also been levied against lawyers who represent rural workers in labor disputes with their employers, in an apparent attempt to prevent them from carrying out their work.

 

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