It was a landmark piece of legislation for Guatemala: a law that established stiff prison sentences for violence against women and appeared to signal a new era for a country still emerging from decades of civil war and military rule.
But in recent years, public officials have found another use for it: stopping journalists from criticizing them or investigating corruption.
Courts have issued restraining orders against reporters at news organizations, effectively shutting down their work, after women argued that the journalists violated the law by publishing articles that subjected them to psychological violence, and the Los Angeles Times found eight such examples.
Advocates for press freedom argue that misusing the femicide law to silence reporters is part of a larger threat to Guatemala’s fledgling democracy.
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