Guatemala City, – Students from two private universities and doctors from a public hospital joined Friday the demonstrations in Guatemala against the attorney general and head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Consuelo Porras Argueta.
Calls for Porras Argueta’s resignation have increased during the week, and on Friday, both sectors joined in support of the indigenous communities that have been blocking the country’s main highways since Monday, according to EFE.
Students from the private universities Rafael Landívar and Del Valle marched this morning from their headquarters to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in downtown Guatemala City in rejection of the head of the Attorney General’s Office.
Leading the march was Congressman Samuel Pérez Álvarez of the Movimiento Semilla party, which brought 64-year-old academic Bernardo Arévalo de León to the presidency on August.
Doctors of the Roosevelt Hospital, one of the two most important in the country, announced in a press conference that they also support the protests against Porras Argueta.
“To the president of the republic, Alejandro Giammattei, we ask him to make a statement,” said the doctors in a communiqué read in front of their facilities.
“Permanent assembly is declared, for an indefinite period, until they resign,” they added.
Five days of protests Demonstrations and road blockades in Guatemala remain in force on Friday for the fifth consecutive day on more than a dozen highways in the Central American country as part of a generalized protest to demand Porras’ resignation.
The number of blockades is the highest of the week since protests began on Monday against the attorney general, accused of wanting to interfere in the electoral process won in August by the progressive candidate Bernardo Arévalo de León.
Arévalo de León accused Porras on September 1 of attempting “a coup d’état” against him to prevent his inauguration in January 2024.
In addition to the roadblocks, the demonstrators have also stood in front of the headquarters of the Public Ministry in several towns of the country, including Guatemala City.
The call for protests began on Monday by the indigenous organization 48 cantones of the department (province) of Totonicapán (west), and other social organizations have joined the protests.
In many departments (provinces), mainly in the west of the territory, several towns have practically decreed a national strike this Friday until the Attorney General resigns.
Despite the social pressure, which has accumulated in blockades during the last four days, Porras Argueta has not referred to her rebuke, and on Tuesday, the Attorney General’s Office issued a statement where it warned that the blockade in front of its headquarters intends to “block” her investigative work.
The resignation request against the Attorney General comes after the Attorney General’s Office intervened, in an unprecedented way, in the local electoral process, with the seizure on Saturday of voting records, in addition to several raids to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the Semilla Movement. EFE
Source : : La Prensa Latina
