On this occasion, we are writing to selected contacts of PBI Guatemala Project Support Network to express our concern about a dramatic increase in SERIOUS THREATS against Guatemalan human rights defenders that we accompany. The threats are happening in the context of their work promoting economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, and the right of indigenous peoples to be informed and consulted before approval is given to large-scale development projects that affect them and their lands.

Dear Sir/Madam,

<media 3425>Download the report.</media>

The political and social instability of Guatemala has grown worse with the murder of Guatemalan lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg on 10 May and the broadcast the next day of a video in which he accuses high-level government officials of plotting his assassination, including President Álvaro Colom and his wife. He accuses the latter of being the intellectual authors of his murder, or at least of authorizing it, in order to cover up other alleged killings and acts of corruption at a bank which manages a large amount of State funds.