Guatemalan Reporter Carlos Ernesto Choc Charged After Reporting on Protests Against Mining Activity

Carlos Ernesto Choc

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Guatemalan authorities to drop criminal charges against Carlos Ernesto Choc, a Maya Q’eqchi’ journalist who stands accused of “instigation to commit a crime” after he reported on an October 2021 protest against nickel mining activities in El Estor, Izabal.

According to Prensa Comunitaria, the news outlet for which Choc works, it only learned that his name was included on an arrest warrant this past week. Choc has not yet been arrested.

According to a report filed December 1, 2021, police officers allege that Choc was among a group of 12 people who attacked them during the protest. Choc has disputed the police’s version of events, saying that police officers shoved him, took his phone and microphone, which limited his ability to cover the protests. Video footage taken that day corroborates Choc’s story.

CPJ condemned Guatemalan authorities, calling their actions “absurd.”

“Once again, Carlos Choc is facing criminal charges simply for being one of the few reporters documenting the state response to demonstrations,” said Natalie Southwick, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator, in New York. “Guatemalan authorities must immediately drop the absurd charges against Choc, stop treating community journalists like criminals for doing their job, and put an end to their campaign to intimidate and threaten the press.”

The human rights organization Front Line Defenders also rebuked Guatemalan authorities, saying it “believes the Guatemalan State is targetting the human rights defender, attempting to link his journalistic work to the anti-mining resistance in order to discredit and undermine his status as a community journalist.”

“Both the practice of journalism and the defence of land and territory are legitimate activities and should not be persecuted by law or by the authorities,” the organization added.

CPJ notes that neither police spokesperson Jorge Aguilar nor the office of Attorney General María Consuelo Porras responded to separate requests for comment.

Choc has been targeted by Guatemalan authorities multiple times. In 2017, he “was charged with incitement to commit crimes, illegal protests, and illegal detention during protests,” according to CPJ, which noted that the charges prompted him to go into hiding for several months. In April 2020, his home was robbed by an unidentified individual who stole his work equipment, including a camera and two cell phones.

Choc later told CPJ that he believes the robbery was an attempt to intimidate him after he reported on water shortages in a community near El Estor, saying that he heard from a neighbor “that many people knew I was working with this issue of water and that there were people interested in censoring that, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Earlier this week, The Intercept reported that internal documents related to the Fenix nickel mine, which is owned by the Switzerland-based Solway Investment Group and has formed the crux of much of Choc’s reporting, reveal that Solway’s subsidiaries hid reports of pollution and bribed political officials in an attempt to repress dissent.