CPJ is honored to present its 2024 International Press Freedom Award to Guatemalan journalist Quimy de León.
Quimy de León is a Guatemalan journalist, medical professional, and historian with over 20 years of professional experience. She is one of Guatemala’s leading journalists and has collaborated with international outlets such as Forbidden Stories.
In 2012, de León founded Prensa Comunitaria alongside a team of journalists and researchers as an alternative news agency specializing in environmental and human rights issues. Prensa Comunitaria covers the intersection of Indigenous communities, land, and gender. In 2017, de León founded Ruda, a feminist digital magazine devoted to sexual and reproductive rights.
As the director of Prensa Comunitaria, de León has experienced relentless threats from corporate and governmental forces determined to silence the outlet. Journalists from Prensa Comunitaria have also faced criminalization for their reporting on land issues and the consequences of extractive operations in Indigenous territories.
During President Alejandro Giammattei’s time in office, de León became a primary target for social media harassment, often accompanied by ominous warnings of potential criminal charges. This disturbing trend involved harassment from anonymous accounts associated with the Guatemalan prosecutor’s office, intended to intimidate her with threats of legal action.
Prensa Comunitaria is a rare platform tasked with shedding light on the impact of climate change and empowering community writers to publish their perspectives. De León’s achievements underscore the essential role of community journalism in Guatemala. Through her efforts, and those of Prensa Comunitaria, marginalized Indigenous and rural voices have gained visibility in a news landscape where their experiences are often overlooked.
De León’s efforts covering critical issues facing marginalized communities in Guatemala highlights her dedication to public interest journalism and achievements fostering media inclusivity throughout the country.
The text of Quimy de León’s acceptance speech, as prepared for delivery and translated into English, is below.
I thank the Committee to Protect Journalists for bringing to the forefront four women journalists at this very complex time in the world, when hatred and authoritarianism are being placed above people, social justice, and peace.
I am overjoyed with this recognition for my work in defense of press freedom and free expression in Guatemala. It has been a great and beautiful surprise to find out that I would be news without seeking it. It undoubtedly encourages me to keep going.
For us women, investigating, writing, and documenting injustices forces us to dramatically change our lives in unique ways. Despite this, we have taken risks to tell the stories emerging from our realities and to seek truth, even when it means challenging power.
It is a serious matter that one of our colleagues from Gaza cannot attend to receive this award in New York because her territory is under siege facing the gravest genocide in recent history.
For centuries, a small group of corporations have decided what is newsworthy and what is not, and thereby altering reality. This kind of journalism has not been truly inclusive and has excluded many people and places.
Together with an exceptional and diverse team, we founded two digital media outlets, Prensa Comunitaria and Ruda, with the aim of democratizing public opinion and journalism.
We practice journalism narrated by those who have been subjects and protagonists of the realities they report on. This contributes to breaking with the tradition of misinformation and polarization that benefits powerful groups.
Those of us who engage in community and feminist journalism see our work as a service that scrutinizes and questions, even from silent zones where traditional media refuse to go.
My work would not be possible without the extraordinary efforts of over one hundred correspondents who make up Prensa Comunitaria and Ruda. For doing their jobs, they have faced aggressions and attacks. Four of them have had to go into exile, and five have been imprisoned for covering community struggles in defense of water or for investigating corrupt local governments or transnational mining companies.
We have managed to break the media barriers, creating counter-narratives to the dominant ones. We tell the story of a different country from the one others have narrated and still narrate. A broader, deeper, more dignified, more complex, and more complete country, seeking to be closer to the truths that have been denied to us.
We are here to claim our space, our right to exist, to speak, to be journalists. The path of collective words, especially that of women and Indigenous peoples, carries great strength, to the point that it has achieved justice and convictions in cases of crimes against humanity. This is a form of social reparation.
I long for a Guatemala where, sooner rather than later, all the political, economic, and social turmoil caused by an anti-democratic minority clinging to the vices of the past will allow us to celebrate our achievements without fear, like this recognition that symbolizes the important work journalists do around the world.
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the journalists who have been murdered for informing and to the journalists in Latin America who have been forced into exile. My solidarity is with those who remain in prison, or who suffer censorship and persecution , especially José Rubén Zamora, a journalist who is subjected to an arbitrary and unjust trial in Guatemala.
We are committed to doing more and better journalism, to continuing to tell local to global stories, and to ensuring that our voices remain a beacon of light.