The political and social instability of Guatemala has grown worse with the murder of Guatemalan lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg on 10 May and the broadcast the next day of a video in which he accuses high-level government officials of plotting his assassination, including President Álvaro Colom and his wife. He accuses the latter of being the intellectual authors of his murder, or at least of authorizing it, in order to cover up other alleged killings and acts of corruption at a bank which manages a large amount of State funds. 

It was recently learned that over the last years the Administrative Department of Security (DAS) has been illegally intercepting communications (wiretapping), carrying out surveillance, and gathering information on persons and organizations this institution considers to be “enemies” of the government. For instance, its scrutinizing eye has been set upon the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice, members of the opposition, trade unionists, and human rights defenders, among other unfortunate “chosen ones.”