This is the transcript of episode 71 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.
MOLOJ POLITICAL ASSOCIATION OF MAYA WOMEN: Our communities demand a public prosecutor’s office that serves those most in need; We call for real change. It is essential to restore public confidence in the investigative and judicial branches to ensure due process.
GRESSIER, HOST: That’s the Moloj Political Association of Maya Women speaking this week, after President Bernardo Arévalo named a new attorney general. It was a moment that an Indigenous-led mass protest movement and much of the diplomatic corps in Guatemala had been eyeing for the better part of three years.
New top prosecutor in Guatemala
This week, Arévalo named the next attorney general: Gabriel García Luna, a 49-year-old lawyer who since 2024 had served as an advisor to the Solicitor General, an Executive Branch institution.
Various media and experts in Guatemala, like sociologist and political analyst Gustavo Berganza, pointed out that, from a shortlist of six finalists, García Luna was the only one who had no visible stains on his career as a public official.
This profile contrasts with the track record of the outgoing attorney general, Consuelo Porras, who since assuming the position in 2018 was sanctioned by 40 countries including the European Union, Canada, and the United States.
Consuelo Porras sought a third term but her wear and tear from various accusations of corruption and selective application of justice made her radioactive, despite a lobbying effort in Trump’s Florida to depict her as a conservative maverick.
In March 2026, in the midst of the selection process, El Faro published detailed information that, in the 1980s, she had signed off on the irregular adoption of Central American children whose identities she even changed.
Consuelo Porras Signed Irregular Adoptions of Children from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras
Now, all eyes are on García Luna, who also has a 20-year career in the Guatemalan Judiciary.
He was a justice of the peace, judge of first instance, and appeals magistrate in the department of Cobán, and until 2023 he was president of the Judicial Discipline Board, as reported by the media outlet Plaza Pública.
The board was in charge of investigating and sanctioning judges who were proven to have committed acts of corruption.
The exiled former head of the Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity, Juan Francisco Sandoval, recalled the important role that García Luna played in the fight against corruption before 2018, when the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) still existed in the country.
García Luna is set to take office on May 17, although some appeals filed by conservative sectors before the Supreme Court of Justice are seeking to block him from becoming the new AG.
They claim that García Luna’s having worked in a high-ranking position in a public institution legally representing the Presidency is a conflict of interest.
The naming of a new attorney general could be the biggest shakeup for Guatemala since the 2023 elections, when a national protest movement emerged against Consuelo Porras. After years of exile and lawfare, will Guatemalan justice be able to turn the page?
Guatemalan journalist murdered
On the night of April 26 in Guatemala, journalist Carlos Humberto Cal Ical was shot dead while heading to his home in Alta Verapaz, 200 kilometers from the capital city.
Cal had not reported prior threats, but local press associations do not rule out that his murder is linked to his work. Cal covered social and environmental conflicts in the area. Alta Verapaz is particularly dangerous for those covering them.
His killing was immediately condemned by the Guatemalan Association of Journalists and the Inter American Press Association. This crime is a symptom of the violence against journalists in Central America.
Reporters Without Borders just published its 2026 World Press Freedom report. Central American countries share alarming patterns of judicial harassment, smear campaigns, physical violence, and economic suffocation. Governments and criminal groups use them to silence scrutiny and investigative reporting.
Reporters Without Borders evaluates press freedom in 180 countries. Central American countries range between positions 128 and 168, with the exception of Costa Rica, in position 38.
In 2025, Guatemala moved up 10 places from 138th. Despite President Bernardo Arévalo’s pledges to protect press freedom, journalists remain at high risk due to hostility from other institutions.
The former director of the newspaper elPeriódico, Jose Rubén Zamora, has faced criminal charges for almost four years now.
Honduras saw a slight improvement, rising from 142nd to 132nd. But the press works under suffocating violence and impunity, fueling self-censorship.
The Honduran military police and army are often the main aggressors. Judicial harassment —like defamation suits from military chiefs— inhibit investigations or try to force journalists to reveal sources.
Nicaragua clocked in at 168th — the worst-evaluated country in Central America and one of the worst in the world. Although it rose from 172nd this year, independent journalism has practically ceased to exist within Nicaragua.
Extreme repression by co-dictators Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo translates into absolute censorship, confiscation of facilities from outlets like La Prensa and Confidencial, warrantless raids, arbitrary detentions, and forced exile.
Speaking of which, in El Salvador, 2025 saw the forced exile of at least 50 journalists and entire newsrooms. This was provoked by government harassment and a new Foreign Agents Law imposing a 30 percent tax on external funding to suffocate dissident media.
This month, May, marks one year since El Salvador’s mass exodus of journalists began — and it shows no signs of letting up.
Escalating attacks on El Faro
Which brings us to our last segment, with an important update from El Faro’s editorial board, about El Faro itself.
Bukele Freezes Personal Assets of El Faro Shareholders
On Thursday, the newsroom announced that the Treasury Ministry in El Salvador froze funds in a bank account and a property belonging to two partners of Trípode, the company that founded El Faro almost three decades ago. They did this between February and April 2026.
It’s the latest episode in a long-running tax crackdown, which began in 2020 when President Nayib Bukele stated on national television that the newsroom was “under investigation for serious money laundering.”
Under his orders, the Treasury launched four audits against Trípode. Unable to substantiate the president’s money laundering accusations in any of the audits, the Ministry changed the charge to tax evasion for the four fiscal years audited.
El Faro has appealed each of these findings and demonstrated that they are baseless. But, the board notes, it is very difficult to defend oneself in a co-opted judicial system like El Salvador’s.
Now the dictatorship in El Salvador has begun to take action against the media outlet’s shareholders.
Bukele’s attacks against El Faro always occur after exposés of its mafia-style deals and corruption. The first accusation, in 2020, came three weeks after El Faro published an investigation revealing the existence of a pact between the Salvadoran government and the MS-13 gang.
This new escalation comes on the heels of the premiere of The Deal, a documentary that El Faro co-produced with the U.S. program Frontline PBS on those deals with criminals.
Days ago, El Faro’s deputy managing editor Sergio Arauz testified before the U.S. Congress’s Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission denouncing government abuses and corruption.
The Bukele regime faces international accusations of crimes against humanity, following a report in March by the International Group of Experts for the Investigation of Human Rights Violations under the State of Emergency in El Salvador.
The Bukele family is using the weight of the state apparatus to persecute critical voices, the board writes. We will continue to practice journalism with the rigor that has defined us since 1998. But also with the certainty that, as long as we don’t stop, the attacks won’t stop either.
This episode was written by Gabriel Labrador and Roman Gressier, with sound design by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, and YouTube.