GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemalan prosecutors mentioned Thursday they may search to strip President-elect Bernardo Arévalo and a number of other members of his celebration of their immunity for allegedly making social media posts that inspired college students to take over a public college in 2022.
Cultural Heritage prosecutor Ángel Saúl Sánchez introduced the transfer geared toward Arévalo and members of his Seed Motion at a information convention whereas federal brokers executed search warrants and sought to arrest greater than 30 pupil members of the celebration.
It was solely the newest authorized salvo towards Arévalo, an anti-corruption crusader who shocked the nation by profitable the presidential election in August. The US authorities, Group of American States and different exterior observers have advised the authorized assaults are an try and maintain Arévalo from taking energy in January.
Lawyer Common Consuelo Porras and outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei have denied political motivations.
Since Arévalo gained a spot within the August runoff, prosecutors have been pursuing his celebration on accusations of wrongdoing within the gathering of the mandatory signatures to register years earlier. A decide suspended the celebration at prosecutors’ request.
Among the many crimes prosecutors plan to pursue towards Arévalo and others within the new case are aggravated usurpation, sedition and unlawful affiliation.
In April 2022, college students took over San Carlos College, Guatemala’s solely public college, following what they thought of the fraudulent election of the college’s new rector Walter Mazariegos. They mentioned that through the vote by college students, college and directors, Mazariegos solely allowed those that would vote for him to solid their ballots.
The U.S. State Division sanctioned Mazariegos for suffocating democratic processes and taking the place of rector after what it known as a fraudulent course of.
The scholars didn’t stand down till June of this 12 months.
Within the case introduced Thursday, one of many examples given in prosecutors’ paperwork is a message by which Arévalo congratulated the protesters on X, previously often called Twitter, in March: “the USAC is making it doable to see a ray of hope in Guatemala.”
On Thursday, Arévalo known as the Lawyer Common’s Workplace’s actions towards his celebration “spurious and unacceptable.”
It got here sooner or later after the Group of American States everlasting council authorized a decision calling Guatemala’s Lawyer Common’s Workplace an undemocratic actor making an attempt to “discredit and impede” the democratic transition of energy.
Marcela Blanco, a younger celebration activist, posted on social media Thursday that brokers had come to her house to arrest her and have been intimidating her.
“I’m a citizen, I’m of the individuals and they’re doing this to me for talking towards corruption,” she wrote. “I ask to your assist.” ____
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