Guatemala’s El Periodico newspaper stops print edition

GUATEMALA CITY — The prominent Guatemalan investigative newspaper “El Periodico” announced, Wednesday, that it is stopping its print edition, after the government arrested the paper’s president.

José Rubén Zamora was arrested, in July and charged with money laundering and extortion. Zamora has overseen dozens of investigations into corruption during his leadership at El Periodico since the paper was founded, in 1996.

All of the paper’s reporters have been let go, and it is not clear how it can continue with digital editions only. The government has withdrawn advertising and has allegedly pressured businesses to do the same.

“It has been 30 years of struggle against corruption and impunity, against governmental abuses and terrorism, in favor of freedom transparency and accountability,” Zamora wrote in a final editorial, datelined from the prison cell where he is being held.

The closure of the print edition came on Guatemala’s “Day of the Journalist.” Guatemala’s chief prosecutor has been criticized by the United States government for blocking corruption investigations and instead pursuing the prosecutors and judges who carried them out.