Last week, according to an account in Sunday's Washington Post, shots were fired at the courthouse where the officers were convicted and where their appeals are now being heard. The attack, according to Frank LaRue of Guatemala's center for Human Rights Legal Action, was "clearly linked to the pope's visit."
Since Gerardi's killing, activists have reported a gradual increase in threats and intimidation directed against them, but these have increased dramatically during the past six months.
Among the more serious recent incidents was the burning of the parish house in Nebaj, Quiche, in February. The office included documents related to Bishop Gerardi's report and others belonging to a team of forensic anthropologists which had been carrying out exhumations in the area where a number of mass killings by the army and its civil defense patrols took place in the 1980s.
One month later, three offices belonging to the San Marcos Diocese were burglarized, and the local bishop, Alvaro Ramazzini, received a series of death threats.
In late April, Guillermo Ovalle de Leon, an accountant at the Fundacion Rigoberta Menchu Tum, was shot to death at a Guatemala City restaurant shortly after receiving a telephoned death threat. The Fundacion, led by Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu, has been pursuing legal cases against top military officers and Rios Montt for genocide.
Since Gerardi's killing, activists have reported a gradual increase in threats and intimidation directed against them, but these have increased dramatically during the past six months.
Among the more serious recent incidents was the burning of the parish house in Nebaj, Quiche, in February. The office included documents related to Bishop Gerardi's report and others belonging to a team of forensic anthropologists which had been carrying out exhumations in the area where a number of mass killings by the army and its civil defense patrols took place in the 1980s.
One month later, three offices belonging to the San Marcos Diocese were burglarized, and the local bishop, Alvaro Ramazzini, received a series of death threats.
In late April, Guillermo Ovalle de Leon, an accountant at the Fundacion Rigoberta Menchu Tum, was shot to death at a Guatemala City restaurant shortly after receiving a telephoned death threat. The Fundacion, led by Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu, has been pursuing legal cases against top military officers and Rios Montt for genocide.