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      Trump Is at War With the First Amendment

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      At a rally in Wildwood, N.J., on Saturday, Donald Trump said that if he is re-elected, he will “immediately deport” any campus protesters who “come here from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti-Americanism or antisemitism.”Of course, Trump dwells in linguistic imprecision. What does “try to bring” mean? Are we using his definitions of jihadism, anti-Americanism and antisemitism? How would those sentiments be monitored? Would the deportations be extrajudicial? Would the deportations be only of student visa holders, or would it include green card holders?This campaign pledge — this threat — is not only unworkable; it’s ludicrous. But it’s a powerful bit of propaganda. It ties together Trump’s message of nativism and xenophobia with one of his fixations: an iron-fist approach to protests that challenge his beliefs or interests.Trump understands, intuitively, the power of crowds, and views it as a pressing threat when aligned against him.Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said Trump was furious about the protests in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. In his memoir, Esper wrote that in one meeting, Trump asked, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” According to Esper, Trump believed that the protests made the country — and him — look weak.Trump has a thirst for authoritarianism because he conflates suppression with strength. In a 1990 interview with Playboy, Trump said this about the Chinese government’s response to the Tiananmen Square protests: “They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Fines Ex-Fox News Reporter, Catherine Herridge, for Not Revealing Sources

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      The journalist, Catherine Herridge, had reported on an F.B.I. investigation of a scientist’s Chinese ties. She was held in contempt of court.A federal judge held a veteran investigative reporter in contempt of court on Thursday for not revealing her sources for articles she wrote about a scientist who was investigated by the F.B.I.The journalist, Catherine Herridge, formerly of CBS News and Fox News, was ordered to pay $800 a day until she divulged the information. The judge, Christopher Cooper of U.S. District Court in Washington, stayed the fine for 30 days to give Ms. Herridge time to appeal.The case, which has alarmed First Amendment advocates, relates to a series of articles that were written by Ms. Herridge and her colleagues in 2017, while she worked at Fox News. The articles revealed that the F.B.I. had investigated the scientist, Dr. Yanping Chen, a Chinese American who is the president of the University of Management and Technology in Arlington, Va., over suspicions of Chinese military ties and whether she had lied on U.S. immigration forms.The F.B.I. ended its investigation without bringing charges against Dr. Chen, a year before Ms. Herridge and her colleagues published and aired their reporting.In 2018, Dr. Chen sued the F.B.I. and other government agencies, accusing them of violating the Privacy Act by leaking information to Ms. Herridge. The Privacy Act has protections for personal information collected by federal agencies.Judge Cooper ruled last year that Ms. Herridge must reveal her confidential sources. On Thursday, he held her in civil contempt for disobeying that order. He said he had not issued the order lightly, deciding that Dr. Chen’s need for the information overcame Ms. Herridge’s First Amendment protections.“Herridge and many of her colleagues in the journalism community may disagree with that decision and prefer that a different balance be struck, but she is not permitted to flout a federal court’s order with impunity,” Judge Cooper wrote in Thursday’s ruling.A lawyer for Ms. Herridge did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ms. Herridge, who left Fox in 2019 to join CBS News as a senior investigative correspondent, was among nearly two dozen CBS News journalists who were laid off by the network this month.“Holding a journalist in contempt for protecting a confidential source has a deeply chilling effect on journalism,” a Fox News spokeswoman said in a statement. “Fox News Media remains committed to protecting the rights of a free press and freedom of speech and believes this decision should be appealed.”Gabe Rottman, a senior lawyer at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement on Thursday that while he disagreed with the ruling against Ms. Herridge, “it’s a relief that Judge Cooper is enabling her to pursue an appeal without the financial pressure of daily fines.”“The court’s opinion makes clear that the answer here has to be Congress passing a federal shield law,” Mr. Rottman said. More

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      Mexico’s President Faces Inquiry for Disclosing Phone Number of Times Journalist

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      President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico has repeatedly made attacks on members of the news media in a country that is one of the world’s deadliest for journalists.Mexico’s freedom of information institute, a government agency, said Thursday that it would start an investigation into the president’s disclosure on national television of the personal cellphone number of a journalist for The New York Times.The investigation centers on a decision by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a televised news conference on Thursday that left many aghast in Mexico, one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists. At least 128 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2006, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.During the news conference, Mr. López Obrador read aloud from an email from Natalie Kitroeff, The New York Times’s bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. She had requested comment for an article revealing that U.S. law enforcement officials had for years been looking into claims that allies of Mr. López Obrador met with and took millions of dollars from drug cartels.In addition to railing against Ms. Kitroeff and identifying her by name, Mr. López Obrador publicly recited her phone number.“This is tantamount to doxxing, illegal by Mexican privacy laws and places reporters at risk,” Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said on X, the social media platform.Mexico’s National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection, or INAI, said in a statement that its investigation would seek to establish whether Mr. López Obrador had violated Mexican legislation protecting personal data. The institute runs Mexico’s freedom of information system, which was created more than two decades ago to make government operations more transparent and curb abuses of power.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Poland’s Ruling Party Casts Doubt on Election That Cost It Power

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      Loyalists of Poland’s Law and Justice party are questioning the legitimacy of the election won this month by an alliance of opposition parties.After eight years of pumping out vitriol against opponents of Poland’s governing party, state-controlled television has rallied to an unlikely new cause: a free media and fair play.Unsettled by the election this month of a new Parliament controlled by political forces it previously vilified, Poland’s main public broadcaster last week set up a telephone hotline as part of what it described as a “special campaign to defend media pluralism” and counter “increasingly frequent attacks on journalists.”The abrupt about face by a public broadcaster notorious for its often vicious, one-sided coverage reflected Poland’s febrile political atmosphere as loyalists of the defeated Law and Justice party scramble to keep their jobs by presenting themselves as victims of persecution and of a compromised election.That loyalists have much to lose as a result of the Oct. 15 vote was made clear last week when Gazeta Wyborcza, a liberal newspaper, published a long list of journalists and other Law and Justice supporters who “will have to say goodbye to their positions” in media, state corporations and other state-controlled entities. The list has since been expanded as readers send in the names of more people they want gone, too.Pleas for “media pluralism” by a public broadcasting system that for years froze out opposition voices and served as a propaganda bullhorn for Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of the nationalist governing party, have mostly been met with guffaws and cries of hypocrisy.But the effort pointed to the obstacles ahead for the election victors as the losing side digs in, fighting to hang on to jobs, and promotes often wild conspiracy theories to explain and, in some cases, deny Law and Justice’s defeat at the polls.The logo of TVP, Polish state television, is seen on the roof of the company’s building, in Warsaw, in September.Kacper Pempel/Reuters“They are trying to create the myth of a stolen victory,” said Jakub Majmurek a prominent commentator on Polish politics and culture. But, he added, “Kaczynski is not Donald Trump” and “I don’t think we are going to see scenes of January 6 in Poland.”Polish politics, he said, “are very unpredictable” and “very polarized” but are still even-tempered enough to make a replay of the storming of the Capitol highly unlikely in Warsaw. “It wouldn’t work. They would have to confront huge crowds on the streets and they don’t know how the police will react,” Mr. Majmurek said.More likely, most observers say, is a long drawn-out struggle by Law and Justice appointees — who are now in control of public broadcasting, the judiciary and other institutions — to resist being replaced by more neutral, or at least less brazenly partisan, figures.TVP Info, the public broadcaster’s news channel, this year gave 66 percent of its airtime to Law and Justice and just 10 percent to the main opposition party. This airtime gap was only 5 percent in favor of Poland’s previous governing party in 2014, the year before Law and Justice rose to power.Law and Justice won more votes than any other single party in the recent election but an alliance of its opponents won a clear majority in Parliament. They have proposed Donald Tusk, the leader of Civic Coalition, the biggest opposition party, as prime minister at the head of a new coalition government.But, more than two weeks after its victory, the opposition has still not been asked to form a government by Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, an ally of Law and Justice.The constitution gives Mr. Duda 30 days to make a decision, a long pause that diehard supporters of the defeated party are now using to try to delay and even derail the consequences of their electoral defeat.Daniel Milewski, a member of Parliament for the governing party, appealed to Mr. Duda “to prevent Donald Tusk from becoming prime minister” and vowed that Law and Justice “will do everything to stop this from happening.”Poland’s main opposition leader, Donald Tusk, is surrounded by journalists and supporters after leaving a voting station in Warsaw, in October.Petr David Josek/Associated PressAs well as veering close to Trump-like pleas to “stop the steal,” Law and Justice has insisted that foreign interference cost them the election, echoing the claims of Democrats in the United States stunned by Hillary Clinton’s upset defeat in 2016.“A question worth asking,” the party’s chairman, Mr. Kaczynski, told Gazeta Polska, a conservative magazine, is “to what extent is our public life autonomous from external forces?” Pointing a finger at Germany and Russia, he complained of “forces at work here all the time” to unfairly influence Polish voters.Antoni Macierewicz, a veteran Law and Justice legislator notorious for promoting apocalyptic conspiracy theories, on Monday accused the leader of Third Way, a centrist grouping allied with Mr. Tusk, of having ties to Russian intelligence and predicted that letting the opposition take power would risk World War III.Another senior Law and Justice legislator, Ryszard Terlecki, warned of dire consequences, including an upsurge in L.G.B.T.Q. activism that he described as a “rainbow flood,” if the opposition was allowed to form a government. But he assured supporters that “all is not lost” and “we still have hope” that right-wing forces might be able to form a coalition government “that will stop the catastrophe.”Particularly shocking to Law and Justice is that it lost the election despite having near total control of public broadcasting, a nationwide network of television and radio stations, and a firm grip on many regional newspapers that were purchased in 2021 by the state oil giant, PKN Orlen, which is itself headed by a former Law and Justice politician.A report on Poland’s election by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the election had been tarnished by “distorted and openly partisan coverage by the public broadcaster.” This, the observers said, “provided a clear advantage to the ruling party, undermining the democratic separation of state and party.”Restoring that separation, however, will be difficult because of the lingering grip of Law and Justice on a raft of bodies it set up after it took power in 2015 and began remaking the system to try to ensure that, no matter the results of future elections, its supporters would remain deeply entrenched.TVP, the Polish state broadcaster, was a target of protesters at a pro-European Union demonstration in Gdansk, in 2021. Mateusz Slodkowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOne such body is the National Media Council, an organization that, controlled by Law and Justice appointees, was given the power to appoint and dismiss public broadcasting executives. In a statement released after the election, the council rejected any attempt by the opposition to break Law and Justice’s hold on public television and radio, vowing to “defend public media and their employees” against what it described as “illegal activities” by the new majority in Parliament.Getting rid of the council — and similar bodies set up by Law and Justice to control judicial appointments — would require new legislation, but any move by Parliament aimed at creating a more level playing field would likely be vetoed by President Duda. The opposition doesn’t have a large enough majority to override his veto.Law and Justice, said Mr. Majmurek, the commentator, “built a lot of traps into the system and did everything to make sure that it still controls many vital state institutions even after losing an election.”The task now faced by the opposition, he added, is “like dismantling a very complicated and potentially deadly bomb.”Anatol Magdziarz More

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      Cambodia Strongman Hun Sen Wields Facebook to Undermine Democracy

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      The Cambodian People’s Party created its Cyber War Room about a decade ago. The goal was to support Prime Minister Hun Sen’s regime through social media propagandizing. Led by the prime minister’s son Hun Manet, a troll army used Facebook and other digital platforms to attack his father’s opposition with disinformation and even allegedly wield death threats.Fast forward to the Cambodian election taking place next month. The CPP’s Cyber War Room is back up and running. General Manet, commander of the Cambodian Army and most likely the country’s next prime minister, is reportedly back at the helm, this time defending his father’s legacy and himself.Facebook is extremely popular in Cambodia, with roughly 12 million of the country’s almost 17 million people on the site. Many people in Cambodia use Facebook as a core means of getting information, and social media platforms are critical for the few journalists still producing independent reporting. The populations of many other countries where governments have continually used social media for manipulation, including the Philippines and Turkey, rely heavily on Facebook as well. So why has state-sponsored trolling like this been allowed to endure for 10 years?It will come as no surprise when I say that Big Tech has a lot of problems on its plate, including fury about transnational digital propaganda campaigns, a global outcry about networked disinformation during the pandemic and panic about both real and hypothetic threats of generative A.I.But as one issue pops into the immediate view, the others don’t go anywhere. Instead, the global problems with our online information ecosystem compound. And while society and tech’s most powerful firms jump from one issue to the next, the abusive disinformation practices in places like Cambodia become entrenched. Governments refine their techniques, and opposition groups become less and less present because they are either trolled into submission, arrested, exiled or killed. It all benefits Big Tech, from Meta to Alphabet, which publicly seizes upon the idea du jour while cutting staffs and curbing efforts aimed at combating standing informational issues.What does this mean for the people of Cambodia? For a people who, in living memory, endured the horrors of genocide and totalitarianism?The Cambodian news ecosystem and the lives of Cambodians are controlled by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has led them in some capacity for 38 years. He is quick to justify his long reign by pointing to economic gains before Covid — by which time the country achieved lower-middle-income status through tourism, textile exports and a growing relationship with China. His people have languished in many other ways, however: Environmental degradation is rife, corruption is commonplace, and human rights abuses are worsening.Mr. Sen and his cronies own or control all but the thinnest sliver of the country’s media outlets. They recently banned the main opposition party from running in the coming election because of an alleged clerical error. And curtailing speech on social media has been critical to the consolidation of their power. Facebook, Telegram and other platforms have been central to the CPP’s illicit, strategic and authoritarian control of Cambodia’s information space and, consequently, public opinion.Other despots have made use of highly organized state-sponsored trolling outfits to quash dissent. Some, like Mr. Sen, have also hired their kids to run them. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s Office of Hate, run by his sons, used social media to defame journalists and threaten opposition. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the autocrat recently re-elected as president of Turkey, benefited greatly from organized troll armies operating on Twitter. Back in Southeast Asia, the increasingly tyrannical regimes of Thailand, the Philippines and Myanmar have all deployed cyber-troops to do their oppressive bidding.Another factor is central to understanding why social media firms have failed to curb state-sponsored trolling around the globe: language.Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms have overwhelmingly focused their efforts to counter harmful and purposely misleading content in English. One reason is that they are based in the United States. Another is the malignant supremacy of Western concerns. But the larger reason is that social media companies cannot or will not supply the resources necessary to moderating content in other languages — particularly those such as Cambodia’s Khmer, which is complex and spoken by about 18 million people worldwide. That’s a small number when compared with the roughly 1.5 billion who speak English.This issue is a major problem for our own democracy too. During the 2020 and 2022 elections, social media platforms failed spectacularly in quashing hateful and disenfranchising content aimed at the tens of millions of Americans who speak Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and a variety of other languages. This resulted in communities of color and groups already marginalized in our political system bearing the brunt of digital hate and purposely false information about these contests. According to my research and work with community leaders, this structural disinformation causes apathy, anger and civic disenchantment among minority voters, and as a result, many don’t show up to vote.The strength of global democracy is tied to the number of countries around the world that truly practice it. And while the leaders of relatively strong democracies like the United States obsess over information technology problems and political spectacle in Washington, they fail to do their duty to protect the less fortunate, both in their own country and elsewhere. This, in turn, lets social media companies off the hook.I recently returned from a lecture tour in Cambodia, where I spoke to more than 12 groups of professional journalists, citizen reporters, scholars, students and activists about the informational and political challenges they face online and offline. All told me that they still use platforms like Facebook and Telegram to coordinate, organize and share information about breaking news and elections.Facebook is especially popular in the country, in part because of its controversial Free Basics program, which offers free internet in a number of developing countries via a constrained number of websites (including, naturally, Facebook). Critics derided this as less a benevolent bid to connect the world and more a heavy-handed effort to “capture more of the market in the name of connectivity.” The promise of social media — that it can be the conduit for communication in countries with controlled media systems — remains true for the people I spoke to in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville. But this potential is quickly dwindling as people lose faith in the safety of online communication. Meanwhile, Facebook remains a potent means for disseminating propaganda.If Meta, Alphabet and other tech firms do not take swift action to curb state-sponsored trolling, and if policymakers and civil society groups in the United States and other democracies don’t put more pressure on authoritarians like Hun Sen, then Cambodians and many others around the world will lose one of their last means of fighting back. We must speak out about the oppression surrounding the Cambodian election, which takes place on July 23 — and speak out about digital injustice.Samuel Woolley is the author of “Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity” and a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      José Rubén Zamora mostró la corrupción en Guatemala y enfrenta prisión

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      Durante años, elPeriódico denunció los manejos indebidos del gobierno. El juicio a su fundador se produce, aseguran los críticos, cuando la democracia en el país se desmorona.Para los activistas que defienden la libertad de prensa y los derechos humanos en Guatemala, el miércoles se perfila como un indicador clave de la tambaleante salud democrática del país.En un tribunal de la capital del país, se espera un veredicto en el juicio de uno de los periodistas más destacados de Guatemala, un caso ampliamente visto como otra señal del deterioro del estado de derecho en el país centroamericano.El periodista, José Rubén Zamora, fue el fundador y director de elPeriódico, un diario líder en Guatemala que investigaba con regularidad la corrupción gubernamental, incluidas las acusaciones contra el actual presidente, Alejandro Giammattei, y la fiscal general, María Consuelo Porras.Zamora es juzgado por cargos de irregularidades financieras que, según los fiscales, se centran en sus negocios y no en su periodismo. Un panel de jueces emitirá un veredicto y, si es declarado culpable, impondrá una sentencia.Una condena, que muchos observadores legales y el mismo Zamora dicen es el resultado probable, sería otro golpe a la frágil democracia de Guatemala, según los defensores de los derechos civiles, ya que el gobierno y sus aliados han apuntado repetidamente a instituciones clave y medios de comunicación independientes.El juicio también se produce cuando el país se dirige hacia una elección presidencial este mes que ha estado plagada de irregularidades, con cuatro candidatos de la oposición descalificados antes de la carrera.“El estado de derecho está roto”, dijo Ana María Méndez, directora para Centroamérica de WOLA, un instituto de investigación con sede en Washington. El caso de Zamora, agregó, representa “un paso más hacia la consolidación de una dictadura” en Guatemala.Sin embargo, a diferencia de otros países centroamericanos, como Nicaragua y El Salvador, donde la democracia también se ha erosionado, el poder en Guatemala no se concentra en una familia o un individuo, dijo Méndez.En Guatemala, agregó, “el autoritarismo se ejerce por redes ilícitas que están conformadas por la élite económica, la élite militar y el crimen organizado en contubernio con la clase política”.Zamora, de 66 años, ha negado repetidamente haber actuado mal y acusó al gobierno de tratar de silenciar a sus críticos.“Soy un preso político”, dijo a los periodistas el 2 de mayo, el día en que comenzó su juicio. Señaló que esperaba que el proceso termine con un veredicto de culpabilidad y agregó: “Me van a sentenciar”.Durante su cargo al frente de elPeriódico, Zamora fue demandado decenas de veces, principalmente por difamación, por parte del gobierno como resultado de la cobertura del diario.Las máquinas prensa guardaban silencio el mes pasado en las oficinas de elPeriódico en Ciudad de Guatemala. El periódico cerró después de que el gobierno congelara sus finanzas.Simone Dalmasso para The New York TimesPero su enfrentamiento legal más serio con las autoridades se inició en julio pasado, cuando fue acusado de lavado de dinero, tráfico de influencias y chantaje.Como parte del caso de la fiscalía, las cuentas bancarias de elPeriódico fueron congeladas, lo que dificultó su economía antes de que cerrara sus puertas definitivamente el mes pasado.El principal testigo del caso fue un exbanquero, Ronald Giovanni García Navarijo, quien dijo a los fiscales que Zamora le pidió que lavara 300.000 quetzales guatemaltecos, o casi 40.000 dólares. También afirmó que Zamora lo había obligado a pautar publicidad de paga anual en el periódico para evitar recibir una cobertura poco halagüeña.Pero la acusación no presentó ninguna prueba que demostrara que Zamora hubiera obtenido el dinero de manera ilegal. La mayor parte de los fondos, que según Zamora eran para pagar los salarios de los empleados del periódico, provenían de un empresario que no quería que se revelara su conexión con elPeriódico por temor a represalias.Su defensa se vio obstaculizada por varias medidas tomadas por los fiscales y una organización de extrema derecha que apoya al fiscal general, la Fundación Contra el Terrorismo, que según los críticos ha tratado de intimidar a algunos de los abogados de Zamora.Pasó por nueve abogados defensores, y al menos cuatro han sido acusados ​​de obstrucción de la justicia por su papel en el caso.“La defensa de Zamora se ha visto obstaculizada desde el primer día por una puerta giratoria de abogados defensores”, dijo Stephen Townley, director legal de la iniciativa TrialWatch de la Fundación Clooney para la Justicia, un grupo defensor de derechos. “Cuatro de sus abogados han sido procesados ​​por las autoridades guatemaltecas. Otros parecían no tener acceso a los materiales de sus predecesores”.Un juez que había estado presidiendo el caso anteriormente no permitió que Zamora presentara ningún testigo y rechazó la mayoría de las pruebas que trató de presentar por considerarlas irrelevantes.“Hemos visto un montaje’’, dijo Zamora en una entrevista, “como un teatro de terror”.El hijo de Zamora, José Carlos Zamora, quien también es periodista, calificó el juicio como “una persecución política”.Por su parte, Giammattei, refiriéndose al caso contra Zamora, ha dicho que ser periodista no le da a una persona el “derecho a cometer actos criminales”.El presidente Alejandro Giammattei se encontraba entre las principales figuras guatemaltecas investigadas por el periódico de Zamora.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAun así, su gobierno ha sido acusado por grupos de derechos humanos de usar el sistema de justicia para atacar a cualquiera que lo desafíe.Los casos de corrupción y derechos humanos se han estancado y el sistema de justicia ha sido “secuestrado” por una red de actores corruptos, según un informe de WOLA.Desde 2021, casi tres decenas de jueces, fiscales anticorrupción y sus abogados han huido de Guatemala, al igual que 22 periodistas que dijeron haber sido amenazados por su trabajo.Cuando se fundó elPeriódico en 1996, Guatemala estaba entrando en un período más esperanzador luego de una brutal guerra civil que duró casi cuatro décadas y dejó cientos de miles de muertos o desaparecidos. Para muchos guatemaltecos agotados, existía la sensación de que la democracia se estaba afianzando y que el gobierno gobernaría con transparencia.Un panel internacional de investigadores respaldado por la ONU trabajó 12 años junto con el poder judicial de Guatemala para exponer la corrupción en la élite del país, incluidos altos funcionarios gubernamentales y empresarios, antes de ser expulsado del país en 2019 por el presidente anterior, a quien el panel estaba investigando.“Lo que vemos hoy es un sistema que quiere seguir protegiendo esa clase de prácticas”, dijo Daniel Haering, analista político en Ciudad de Guatemala.El caso de Zamora y la desaparición de su periódico hacen retroceder los esfuerzos para hacer que el gobierno rinda cuentas por sus acciones, dijo Méndez.“¿Quién va a decir ahora la verdad en Guatemala?”, dijo. “Quedará un vacío enorme”.Zamora con su abogada el día de la apertura de su juicio el mes pasado. No se le permitió presentar ningún testigo ni la mayor parte de las pruebas en su defensa.Santiago Billy/Associated PressEl juicio de Zamora termina cuando el país se prepara para las elecciones nacionales del 25 de junio, que según los grupos de derechos civiles ya se han visto empañadas después de que los jueces en los últimos meses prohibieron la participación a cuatro candidatos presidenciales de partidos de oposición.Entre ellos estaba Carlos Pineda, un populista conservador, que se había comprometido a luchar contra la corrupción y que, según una encuesta reciente, había ascendido a puntero. El tribunal supremo de Guatemala lo retiró de la contienda por acusaciones de que los métodos que usó el partido de Pineda para elegirlo como su candidato habían violado la ley electoral.El caso de Zamora también ha entrampado a los periodistas simplemente por cubrirlo. Ocho reporteros, editores y columnistas están siendo investigados por obstrucción a la justicia tras escribir sobre el proceso para elPeriódico. La mayoría se ha ido de Guatemala.Desde que Giammattei asumió el cargo en enero de 2020, el Asociación de Periodistas de Guatemala ha documentado 472 casos de hostigamiento, agresiones físicas, intimidación y censura contra la prensa.“De inmediato te preguntas: ‘¿En qué momento mis coberturas son interpretadas como un delito?’”, dijo Claudia Méndez, quien trabajó en elPeriódico como reportera y editora y ahora conduce un programa de radio. “‘¿En qué momento mi labor es ya no un ejercicio de crítica y rendición de cuentas, sino visto como un acto ilícito?’”. More

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      He Exposed Corruption in Guatemala. Now He Faces Prison.

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      The trial of José Rubén Zamora, the founder of a newspaper that long shone a spotlight on government graft, comes as critics say democracy in Guatemala is crumbling.For activists defending press freedom and human rights in Guatemala, Wednesday looms as a key gauge of the country’s wobbly democratic health.In a courtroom in the country’s capital, a verdict is expected in the trial of one of Guatemala’s most high-profile journalists, a case widely seen as another sign of the deteriorating rule of law in the Central American country.The journalist, José Rubén Zamora, was the founder and publisher of elPeriódico, a leading newspaper in Guatemala that regularly investigated government corruption, including accusations involving the current president, Alejandro Giammattei, and the attorney general, María Consuelo Porras.He stands trial on charges of financial wrongdoing that prosecutors say focus on his business dealing and not his journalism. A panel of judges will deliver a verdict and, if he is found guilty, will impose a sentence.A conviction, which many legal observers and Mr. Zamora himself say is the likely outcome, would be another blow to Guatemala’s already fragile democracy, according to civil rights advocates, as the government and its allies have taken repeated aim at key institutions and independent news media outlets.The trial also comes as the country heads toward a presidential election this month that has already been plagued by irregularities, with four opposition candidates disqualified ahead of the race.“The rule of law is broken,” said Ana María Méndez, the Central America director at WOLA, a Washington-based research institute. Mr. Zamora’s case represents, she added, yet another “step toward the consolidation of a dictatorship” in Guatemala.Unlike other Central American countries, like Nicaragua and El Salvador, where democracy has also eroded, however, power is not concentrated in a family or an individual, Ms. Méndez said.In Guatemala, she added, “authoritarianism is exercised by illicit networks made up of the economic elite, the military elite and organized crime in collusion with the political class.”Mr. Zamora, 66, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and accused the government of trying to silence its critics.“I am a political prisoner,” he told reporters on May 2, the day his trial started. He said he fully expected it would end with a guilty verdict, adding, “I will be sentenced.”During his tenure running elPeriódico, Mr. Zamora was sued scores of times, mostly for slander, by the government as a result of the newspaper’s coverage.The presses were silent last month at the elPeriódico newspaper offices in Guatemala City. The newspaper shut down last month after the government froze its finances.Simone Dalmasso for The New York TimesBut his most serious legal confrontation with authorities was set in motion last July, when he was charged with money laundering, influence peddling and blackmail.As part of the prosecution’s case, elPeriódico’s bank accounts were frozen, hobbling its finances before it finally closed its doors for good last month.The main witness in the case was a former banker, Ronald Giovanni García Navarijo, who told prosecutors that Mr. Zamora asked him to launder 300,000 Guatemalan quetzales, or nearly $40,000. He also claimed that Mr. Zamora had forced him to place annual paid advertising in the newspaper to avoid receiving unflattering coverage.But the prosecution did not present any evidence showing that Mr. Zamora had obtained the money illegally. Most of the funds, which Mr. Zamora has said was to pay the salaries of the newspaper’s employees, had come from a businessman who did not want his connection to elPeriódico disclosed for fear of reprisals.His defense was hampered by various steps taken by prosecutors and a far-right organization that supports the attorney general, the Foundation Against Terrorism, which critics say has tried to intimidate some of Mr. Zamora’s lawyers.He cycled through nine defense lawyers, and at least four have been charged with obstruction of justice for their role in the case.“Zamora’s defense has been hamstrung from day one by a revolving door of defense lawyers,” said Stephen Townley, legal director of the TrialWatch initiative at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, a rights group. “Four of his lawyers have been prosecuted by the Guatemalan authorities. Others then seemed not to have access to their predecessors’ materials.”A judge who had been presiding over the case earlier in the process did not allow Mr. Zamora to present any witnesses and rejected most of the evidence he tried to submit, deeming it irrelevant.“We have seen,’’ Mr. Zamora said in an interview, “a theater of terror.”Mr. Zamora’s son, José Carlos Zamora, who is also a journalist, called the trial a “political persecution.’’For his part, Mr. Giammattei, referring to the case against Mr. Zamora, has said that being a journalist does not give a person the “right to commit criminal acts.’’President Alejandro Giammattei was among the leading Guatemalan figures being investigated by Mr. Zamora’s newspaper.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesStill, his administration has been accused by human rights groups of using the justice system to target anyone who challenges his government.Corruption and human rights cases have stalled and the justice system has been “hijacked” by a network of corrupt actors, according to a report by WOLA.Since 2021, nearly three dozen judges, anti-corruption prosecutors and their lawyers have fled Guatemala, as have 22 journalists who say they had been threatened because of their work.When elPeriódico was founded in 1996, Guatemala was entering a more hopeful period following a brutal civil war that lasted nearly four decades and left hundreds of thousands dead or missing. For many weary Guatemalans, there was a feeling that democracy was taking hold and the government would rule with transparency.A U.N.-backed international panel of investigators spent 12 years working alongside Guatemala’s judiciary to expose graft among the country’s elite, including top government officials and businessmen, before being expelled from the country in 2019 by the previous president whom the panel was investigating.“What we see today is a system that wants to continue to protect’’ criminal behavior, said Daniel Haering, a political analyst in Guatemala City.Mr. Zamora’s case and the demise of his newspaper sets back efforts to hold the government accountable for its actions, Ms. Méndez said.“Who’s going to tell the truth in Guatemala now?” she said. “There will be a huge void left.”Mr. Zamora with his lawyer on the opening day of his trial last month. He had not been allowed to present any witnesses or submit most of the evidence in his defense.Santiago Billy/Associated PressMr. Zamora’s trial ends as the country prepares for national elections on June 25, which civil rights groups say have already been tarnished after judges in recent months banned four presidential candidates from opposition parties from the vote.Among those was Carlos Pineda, a conservative populist, who had pledged to fight corruption and who a recent poll showed had risen to the top of the field. Guatemala’s top court removed him from the race on charges that the methods Mr. Pineda’s party used to choose him as its candidate had violated electoral law.Mr. Zamora’s case has also ensnared journalists simply for covering it. Eight reporters, editors and columnists are being investigated on charges of obstruction of justice after writing about the process for elPeriódico. Most have left Guatemala.Since Mr. Giammattei took office in January 2020, the Journalists Association of Guatemala has documented 472 cases of harassment, physical attacks, intimidation and censorship against the press.“You immediately ask yourself, ‘At what point is my coverage interpreted as a crime?’” said Claudia Méndez, who worked at elPeriódico as a reporter and editor and now works for a Guatemalan radio show. “‘At what point is my work no longer an exercise in criticism and accountability, but seen as an unlawful act?’” More

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      in Elections

      How Turkey’s Erdogan Rose to Power

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      Turkey’s leader faced a criminal conviction, mass protests and a coup. Instead of hurting or ending his political career, they helped him accumulate ever more control.From mayor to lawmaker and prime minister to president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan rose through the ranks to Turkey’s highest positions and then made them his own, bringing the country over the course of 20 years closer to one-man rule.On Sunday, Mr. Erdogan will try to secure another term as president, although only after the opposition forced him into a runoff vote. That the election has gone to a second round is a sign that his grip on the country has slipped, if not been broken, amid a host of problems like economic turmoil, widespread corruption and his government’s handling of catastrophic earthquakes this spring.But Mr. Erdogan has navigated crises since the earliest days of his career, including a jail sentence, mass protests and an attempted coup. Several of those episodes illustrate how he not just survived crises, but found opportunities to consolidate power through them.A lifetime ban that lasted a few yearsIn 1998, Mr. Erdogan, then Istanbul’s 44-year-old mayor, was a rising star of Turkey’s Islamist political movement — which was the target of a crackdown by the military-backed authorities. That year, a court convicted him of having called for religious insurrection by quoting an Islamist poem from the 1920s. He was sentenced to 10 months in jail and handed a lifetime ban on political activity.Although predominantly Muslim, Turkey was founded as a secular republic and the traditional political elites felt the Islamists were anathema to those values.Mr. Erdogan when he was mayor of Istanbul in 1998.Murad Sezer/Associated PressMr. Erdogan spent four months in jail, making plans for a comeback despite the ban. In a general amnesty in 2001, Turkey’s Constitutional Court lifted the ban, and he soon assembled a new political party with other reformists from the Islamist movement who promised good governance and sought ties with the West.Allies who changed the rulesMr. Erdogan’s ascent was nearly stopped in 2002 by Turkey’s electoral board, which barred him from an election because of his criminal conviction. But his party colleagues, who had swept into Parliament, amended the Constitution to let him run. Mr. Erdogan won office and became prime minister in 2003.He governed piously at home and pragmatically abroad, winning allies with a mix of charisma and nationalistic fervor. He pushed to lift bans on women’s head scarves in state offices, promoted the construction of mosques, courted the E.U. market and fended off challenges from rivals among Turkey’s military and business elites.Mr. Erdogan promoted the construction of mosques in the country, such as the Taksim Square mosque in Istanbul.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHis government also began prosecuting some of those figures, in 2008 accusing dozens of people, including retired army generals and journalists, of trying to stage a coup. Mr. Erdogan’s allies called the trial an attempt to reckon with Turkey’s history of violent power struggle. Critics called it an effort to silence the secular opposition.With voters’ approval in a referendum two years later, Mr. Erdogan reshaped the Constitution again. He said the 2010 overhaul brought Turkey closer to Europe’s democracies and broke from its military past, while his opponents said it gave his conservative government greater control over the military and the courts. He won a third term as prime minister in 2011.The mall that provoked protestsMr. Erdogan was not without significant, if disparate, opposition. In 2013, protests that erupted over a proposed mall to replace an Istanbul park morphed into a demonstration of discontent over many issues, including the drift toward Islamist policies and persistent corruption.Mr. Erdogan cracked down, not just on protesters but also on medics, journalists, activists, business owners and officials accused of sympathizing. Some cultural figures were imprisoned and others fled, and for many who remained, an atmosphere of self-censorship descended.People running away as Turkish riot police fire tear gas on Taksim Square during protests in 2013.Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAs his term neared its end, Mr. Erdogan faced a problem: His party’s rules prevented him from another turn as prime minister. In 2014, he instead ran for another office — becoming Turkey’s first popularly elected president, opening his term with words of rapprochement.“I want us to build a new future with an understanding of societal reconciliation, while considering our differences as our richnesses and bringing forward our common values,” he said in a victory speech.But rather than limit himself to the mostly ceremonial duties of the role, he moved to maximize its powers, which included a veto on legislation and the ability to appoint judges.The transformative aftermath of a coupMr. Erdogan’s rule nearly ended in 2016, as a chaotic insurrection by parts of the military and members of an Islamist group that had once been his political ally tried to oust him. But he skirted capture, called Turks to protest in the streets and soon re-emerged in Istanbul to reassert control.“What is being perpetrated is a rebellion,” he said. “They will pay a heavy price for their treason to Turkey.”Soldiers involved in a coup attempt surrendering in Istanbul in 2016.Gokhan Tan/Getty ImagesA purge that followed reshaped Turkey: Thousands accused of connections to the coup plot were arrested, tens of thousands lost jobs in schools, police departments and other institutions, and more than 100 media outlets were shuttered. Most of those caught up in the purge were accused of affiliations with the Gulen movement, the Islamist followers of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric accused by Mr. Erdogan of orchestrating the coup while living in exile in the United States.Within a year, Mr. Erdogan had arranged another referendum for voters, this one on whether to abolish the post of prime minister and move power to the president, as well as grant the role more abilities.With his opponents under pressure and his allies reinvigorated, he narrowly won the referendum, calling the changes necessary to make the government more efficient. The next year, he won re-election to another five-year term.A blitz of decrees and growing discontentHours before his inauguration in 2018, Mr. Erdogan published a 143-page decree that changed the way almost every government department operated. He fired another 18,000 state employees and made several major appointments, naming his son-in-law the new finance minister.The decree was just one sign of how far Mr. Erdogan has taken Turkey down the path toward strongman rule. The government announced new internet restrictions and started monumental projects — including soaring bridges, an enormous mosque and a plan for an “Istanbul Canal.”Many of Mr. Erdogan’s supporters hail efforts like these as visionary, but critics say they feed a construction industry that is plagued by corruption and which has wasted state funds.A poster featuring Mr. Erdogan during the election campaign this month in Istanbul.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesThose frustrations have spread among many Turks in recent years. While Mr. Erdogan has raised Turkey’s stature abroad and pursued major projects, his consolidation of power has left some uneasy, and the economy has suffered.That dissent has loosened Mr. Erdogan’s hold over the country.In 2019, his party lost control of some of Turkey’s largest cities — only to contest the results in Istanbul. Turkey’s High Election Council ordered a do-over election, a decision condemned by the opposition as a capitulation to Mr. Erdogan, but his party lost that second vote, too, ending 25 years of dominance in Turkey’s largest city.And now, with his government criticized for its preparation for earthquakes and its response to them, and Turkey’s economy teetering on the verge of crisis, Mr. Erdogan has persisted with major spending and lowering interest rates despite inflation, which has left many Turks feeling far poorer. More