José Carlos Zamora, son of Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora, imprisoned for more than 700 days, assured this Friday in Bogotá that they will continue to “demonstrate the truth and seek justice,” at the inauguration of the Gabo Festival, where he showed signs of optimism about the arrival of a new administration.

In the conversation ‘Journalism without chains’, Zamora denounced “arbitry delays” in the trial against his father and “psychological tortures” that he has received in prison: “these two years have shown us the worst side of humanity, but also the best.”

“My father’s arrest was a very clear message: anyone who denounced corruption could be arrested,” lamented Zamora, who reported the support received by the family and the media in these years “has been overwhelming in a positive way.”

The journalist founded and presided over the morning El Periódico from 1996 to 2023, with more than a thousand reports of corruption in the Government, including the scandals that gave way to the fall of the Government of former President Otto Pérez Molina.

For almost 700 days, Zamora Marroquín has been in prison in a prison located within a military brigade in the north of Guatemala City and still has three criminal proceedings pending against him to be resolved.

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The change of administration in Guatemala and the arrival of Bernardo Arévalo to the Presidency “is something extremely positive,” since the new president “seems to have the will to do the right thing,” although “he reaches a totally corrupt State,” which makes it difficult for him to take action.

However, “the constant harassment of the press from the Executive has ceased,” something that helps journalistic work, although it continues from other democratic bodies such as Congress.

In this context, “the Executive is an extremely weak position,” so Arévalo “should take more actions and faster to uprot the corruption of the State.”

Recently, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said that “Mr. Zamora’s arrest was the result of the legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of expression,” so “no trial should be held.”

Zamora asked “that the hearings be held, that they take into account the UN opinion and release it.”

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Zamora was with the Colombian journalist María Teresa Ronderos, the Salvadoran journalist Angélica Cárcamo and the director of the Foundation for Freedom of the Press (Flip), Jonathan Bock, who made an analysis of the risks of journalism in the region.

The situation in Colombia and the recent confrontation of President Gustavo Petro with the press and his attacks on the Flip, this was called “absolute nonsense” by Ronderos, who said that these are “perverse and insidious attacks that should not be endured.”

Central America and El Salvador were also the subject of analysis, regretting that “hostile scenarios” are experienced, in the words of Cárcamo, who, however, considered that in Latin America “it is the time when more and better journalism is being done.”