The Trump administration’s new agreement with Guatemala violates U.S. and international law on the right to seek asylum and poses a serious risk to the safety of those seeking protection in the United States, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) warned today. The bilateral Asylum “Cooperative” Agreement announced today allows the U.S. government to send asylum seekers from the […]

In 1954, the Guatemalan military, managed by the United States, overthrew the reformist democratic government. With no legal restraints in place, soldiers and policemen killed and tortured tens of thousands of civilians in the name of anti-communism. In 1985, the military allowed the election of a civilian government, and the next year Christian Democrat Vinicio […]

Last Sunday, former military general Otto Perez Molina, was elected to be Guatemala’s next president. Mounting evidence of PerezMolina’s participation in crimes against humanity and genocide during Guatemala’s internal armed conflictraises the question of how the international community will respond to the newhead of state. Perez Molina served as a commanding military officer in theIxil […]

Recent revelations that the US government conducted medical experiments in the 1940s in which Guatemalan soldiers, prisoners, and mental patients were intentionally infected with syphilis, gonorrhea, and other sexually transmitted diseases are truly horrific, and have generated widespread outrage and remorse.Top government officials — including President Obama, Secretary of State hillary Clinton, and Health and […]

This study, by environmental health scientists from the University of Michigan, was coordinated and published by Physicians for Human Rights. The study examines the health and environmental impacts of the Marlin Mine, owned by Canada’s Goldcorp company through its Guatemalan subsidiary, Montana Exploradora, Inc.

Since the military overthrow of the democratic Guatemalan government in 1954, soldiers and policemen have tortured and murdered with abandon while tens of thousands of extrajudicial executions and disappearances have never been investigated. Guatemala: Getting Away With Murder details two forensic missions which examined the flawed medical and scientific procedures applied in the few death […]