{"id":11827,"date":"2024-03-25T16:25:24","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T00:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/?p=11827"},"modified":"2024-03-26T07:46:33","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T15:46:33","slug":"the-fear-you-lose-as-a-prisoner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/uncategorized\/the-fear-you-lose-as-a-prisoner\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"The fear you lose as a prisoner"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EMMA G\u00d3MEZ<\/p>\n

TRANSLATED BY THOMAS LANG<\/p>\n

\u201cI was reborn. I have a new world to rediscover and I have accepted that lost time cannot be recuperated, but this is a new start. Life changes when you\u00b4ve been in jail for 690 days.\u201d These powerful words were Virginia Laparra\u2019s response when asked how she felt after regaining her freedom.<\/p>\n

Lilian Virginia Laparra Rivas, 44 years old, is known as a former anticorruption prosecutor. She worked in the Public Ministry (MP) for 16 years and was chief of the Special Prosecutor against Impunity (FECI). She was behind bars for nearly two years. She was arrested on the afternoon of February 23, 2022 as she was leaving the MP building in Zona 7 in Xela.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could not rob me of my smile and my will to fight,\u201d she affirmed. Listening to her, all that she saw as a prisoner is unimaginable. Her strength and determination defy the days and nights of anguish, sadness, uncertainty, and cruelty that she spent behind a sliding metal door in a room that was only 3 square meters. A window that was 20 by 30 centimeters barely allowed light to shine in. She tells her story so naturally thats impossible to believe the abuse that she suffered. She is a very happy woman who is convinced that justice will be served in some moment as long as those in charge do their job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn jail I asked myself why in college I never studied the legal codes that were now being used to prosecute me. It&#39;s as if the judges were using other laws to prosecute me.\u201d The crimes she was charged with usually allow for house arrest, yet various times she was denied that sentence. Many in the Laparra family are legal professionals, and despite the fact that they saw many inconsistencies in the cases, they believed in the State of law and that the justice system would work as long as those in charge did their jobs properly. \u201cWho am I if I cannot believe in what I do? The system and justice need to be upheld. I am a lawyer and I believe that human rights need to be respected. I resisted. I persisted.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are two cases against Laparra. In the first case, she was convicted of prolonged abuse of power for charging then judge Lesther Castellanos, now Clerk of the Office of Prevention of Torture. The second crime she was convicted of well already behind bars in October of 2022 was the crime of revealing confidential or protected information, for apparently divulging details of a criminal procedure. This trial has been delayed for about a year.<\/p>\n

Castellanos is the plaintiff in both cases. Just like in the first case, Omar Barrios and Ricardo M\u00e9ndez Ruiz Falla, President of the Foundation against Terrorism, are co- plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

The repression and criminalization were absurd. On the day she was arrested, the National Civil Police put on a show with dozens of patrols when a simple citation in court would have sufficed. \u201cThey don\u2019t even do this for major corrupt criminals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMay she rot in jail\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

She only had one hour of sunlight. \u201cI spent 23 hours in darkness. In those moments I would clean my cell and walk a little bit.\u201d She says her tormentors wanted to see her emotionally, physically, and socially destroyed. They repeated over and over \u201cmay she rot in jail!\u201d She counted the days, but she sank deeper into the darkness. There was a time that she thought she could no longer stand the pressure: familial, professional, and personal. \u201cI made friends with my emotions. I controlled them to overcome each day. I spent the time getting to know myself. \u201d There were moments in which she cried but she wiped away her tears with cold water from the spigot. \u201cI organized my life because I knew if I didn\u00b4t, I would go crazy. Those small things helped me to survive,\u201d she said. All that she lived through would make anybody lose their mind.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was in Guatemala\u2019s maximum security prison! I\u2019m so dangerous!\u201d she laughed. Describing
\nit, she says the cells are used for a series of punishments. Nobody spends more than three
\ndays there. That is where they send other prisoners for punishment when they break the
\nrules, but Virginia was there for many months. \u201cI was deprived of my liberty in the worst
\nconditions: total isolation, denied food, denied water, unable to speak with anybody\u2014not
\neven the guards\u2014I couldn&#39;t even turn and look at them, let alone receive any visitors. If all of
\nthis wasn&#39;t supposed to erase me from the map, I have no idea what it was for.\u201d She was a
\nprisoner in the worst conditions. Now, Jos\u00e9 Rub\u00e9n Zamora, the former director of El
\nPeri\u00f3dico, is being held in the same cell.<\/p>\n

Behind bars she was able to write about what happened. A white sheet of paper and a pencil
\nwere allies that allowed her to express her emotions. Write as she managed to write her first
\nletter, she was visited by the then Attorney for Human Rights, Jord\u00e1n Rodas (now in exile).
\nHe came to see the conditions Laparra was being held in. That was when it all started to
\ncome to light.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust in case\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

During our interview, her eyes clouded over with tears every time she was reminded of those
\nscenes that she lived through since the day of her arrest. But she says that criminalization,
\nabuse, and prosecution were coming for her in 2018. Back then she already knew that she
\ncould be arrested at any moment. She had already heard rumors that a warrant was out for
\nher arrest, but never imagined things would be so difficult.
\nShe is the mother of two girls, and every time she remembers their separation, a few tears
\nfall on her cheek. She stays quiet for a few seconds, takes a breath, and resumes telling her
\nstory. \u201cIt was very difficult for me not spending birthdays and parties with my daughters,\u201d she
\nlamented<\/p>\n

The slander, accusations, and harassment came through social media. She didn\u2019t have
\nanything to fear, but kept a folder called \u201cjust in case\u201d on her computer. There she saved
\ninstructions for if one day she was captured. \u201cNobody is prepared to be taken prisoner, but
\nwith all the speculation I spoke about it with my family. I have a wonderful loving family that
\nprotected me during this time. They understood me, never drew attention or asked too much.<\/p>\n

My daughters were spectacular despite everything we suffered. They were able to keep on
\nliving their lives without their mother. They were very brave. I am so extremely proud of
\nthem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The worst day in jail<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another difficult episode that Laparra overcame was the arrest of one of her lawyers,
\nClaudia Gonz\u00e1lez. That day, Virgina says, she heard something going on from the moment
\nshe woke up, but wasn\u2019t sure because everyone was shocked they had arrested a lawyer. In
\njail, spaces are small so everyone hears everything that is going on, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe days were infinitely long, but that day in particular was the worst.\u201d She goes quiet for a
\nfew minutes. She struggles to respond but her memory finally brings her back to that day.
\n\u201cThey were saying that they had captured a lawyer who had visited the jail the previous
\nweekend, and Claudia was the only one who had been there.\u201d Her voice breaking, Virginia
\nrecalls how that day was the most tragic of her incarceration. Now, two lawyers who fought
\ninjustice were prisoners. Gonz\u00e1les spent 82 days in jail, also in isolation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything my legal team did made the judges uncomfortable. Even the sound of my
\nattorney\u2019s computer keyboard annoyed them, though they never said the same about
\neveryone else in the courtroom. I think there were laws and codes applicable only to my
\ncase\u2014this is the repression I suffered,\u201d she said.
\nAnd this is how days passed for Virginia, living through torture and aggressive experiences
\nbecause her trial was going nowhere. Justice was nonexistent. The case against her in
\nQuetzaltenango went to alternative mediation, but she couldn\u2019t be set free because of the
\nother case against her. That case, in the Capital, was resolved and she was set free on the
\ncondition that she appear in the Public Ministry weekly.<\/p>\n

Virginia has managed to fight against the bureaucratic, repressive, and corrupt justice
\nsystem. She has been supported by local and international organizations. The former
\nprosecutor is now known for her fight against impunity. She was targeted for prosecuting a
\ncorrupt judge but insists that this is the price that has to be paid to do the right thing and
\nchange the system. She lost time in jail, but also lost fear. Now she is convinced more than
\never that people are what corrupt laws.<\/p>\n

A month after regaining her freedom, Viriginia visited our offices to talk to us about her fight
\nagainst a failed justice system.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EMMA G\u00d3MEZ TRANSLATED BY THOMAS LANG \u201cI was reborn. I have a new world to rediscover and I have accepted that lost time cannot be recuperated, but this is a new start. Life changes when you\u00b4ve been in jail for 690 days.\u201d These powerful words were Virginia Laparra\u2019s response when asked how she felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[453,424,1,422],"tags":[4630,947,474,4628,4629,4626,4627],"class_list":["post-11827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-frontpage-en","category-politics","category-uncategorized","category-women","tag-corrupt-state","tag-corruption","tag-criminalization","tag-government-of-guatemala","tag-justice-system","tag-political-prisoner","tag-prison"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240209_105055-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1152&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7ljt7-34L","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10058,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/politics\/citizens-suffer-the-consequences-of-an-inefficacious-ministry-of-public-services\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":11827,"position":0},"title":"Citizens Suffer The Consequences Of An Inefficacious Ministry of Public Services","author":"EntreMundos","date":"19 julio, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Samuel \u00c1lvarez Morales, Director of Visi\u00f3n Legislativa \u00a0 In May of 2022, President Alejandro Giammattei selected Consuelo Porras to serve four more years as Attorney General of the Ministry of Public Prosecutor (MP) in spite of her questionable administration.\u00a0 The public criticized the decision on social media and organized\u2026","rel":"","context":"En \u00abCorruption\u00bb","block_context":{"text":"Corruption","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/category\/politics\/corruption\/?lang=en"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/fotos-articulo-4-1.jpg?fit=960%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/fotos-articulo-4-1.jpg?fit=960%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/fotos-articulo-4-1.jpg?fit=960%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/fotos-articulo-4-1.jpg?fit=960%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1878,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/economy\/corruption-and-transparency-icefis-plan\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":11827,"position":1},"title":"Corruption and Transparency: ICEFI’s plan","author":"EntreMundos","date":"10 noviembre, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Commentary by the Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies (ICEFI). 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