On November 21, 2020, after Guatemala’s Congress approved a budget that proposed cuts to funding for health care and education, thousands of protesters flooded the streets. “People’s indignation was legitimate,” Lucía Ixchíu says. Riot police arrested dozens of people that day. At least two protesters lost an eye after being assaulted by police. A portion of Congress was sent on fire. Authorities quickly blamed protesters, but Ixchíu and others believe the blaze was actually instigated by government infiltrators to help build criminal cases against activists.
Just two months before the November protest, Ixchíu had survived the assassination attempt in Totonicapán. After the fire, the threats and police harassment only intensified, forcing her to go into hiding until she clandestinely left Guatemala in 2021. She says she wasn’t willing to bet her future on a racist and corrupt judicial system in a country like Guatemala “where prison is torture.”
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