Location
Legal cases in different areas of the country.
Area of work and rights defended
The struggle for justice and against impunity. Edgar Pérez and the BDH - founded by him in 2010 - provide pro-bono legal representation to victim organizations in judicial proceedings for human rights violations committed during the internal armed conflict and other human rights violations that past and present.
Description of the problem
The judicial processes for the recovery of the historical memory which Pérez and the BDH represent include the following: the process for the disappearance, torture and extrajudicial execution of the guerrilla commander Efraín Bámaca Velásquez in 1992; The massacre in the community of Las Dos Erres, Petén, in 1982; The massacre in the Río Negro community, Alta Verapaz, in 1982; The massacre of the burning of the Spanish Embassy in 1980; The genocide against the Ixil people; The disappearance, between 1981 and 1988, of civilians in the former Military Zone 21 of Alta Verapaz, also known as CREOMPAZ.
PBI began to accompany Édgar Pérez Archila in August 2010, due to several security incidents Edgar had faced in relation to the high profile judicial processes he was working on. At the end of 2013, we extended the accompaniment to the other lawyers of the BDH who work in high-profile trials to fight against impunity and in defending criminalised human rights defenders.
Awards
In April 2012, Edgar Pérez Archila won the International Human Rights Lawyer Award (IHRLA) from the American Bar Association for his outstanding work on these emblematic human rights cases.
In December 2012 the lawyer Edgar Pérez Archila received the Medal of the General Governor of Canada for his work with the Canadian NGO Lawyers without Frontiers to implement programs of transitional justice and strategic litigation in human rights as well as for his participation in conferences and events all over Canada to help academics, human rights defenders and government officials for a better understanding of the complexity of the Guatemalan post-conflict society.
October 28th, the human Rights Law Firm will receive the Alice Zachman Human Rights Defender Award for its unparalleled defense and promotion of human rights through its work accompanying victims and challenging injustice.
For more information about the work of the Human Rights Law Firm visit its website here.