Irma Flaquer Azurdia (5 September 1938 - disappeared 16 October 1980), was a

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

n psychologist and reporter known for her pointed critiques against the Guatemalan government.

Biography

Born to a Catalan theater producer father, Fernando Flaquer, and Guatemalan opera singer mother, Olga Azurdia, she spent her childhood travelling and living throughout

Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. In 1955, she married Fernando Valle Avizpe and later divorced in 1958. That same year (1958) she started a column in the

n newspaper '' La Hora'', entitled ''"Lo que otros callan"'' which she would later transfer over to ''

La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal '' Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argentina. Its motto is: "''La Nac ...

'' in the years 1971 to 1980. She had two sons, Sergio Valle and Fernando Valle.

Disappearance

In 1970, she had a hand grenade thrown into her car, injuring only her hand. On October 16, 1980, Irma attended her grandson's fourth birthday party. It was also believed to be a last farewell to her son Fernando, his wife, Mayra Rosales, and her grandson, Fernando, before she left for Nicaragua the next day. While she and Fernando drove back to her apartment, they were stopped a block away from her apartment by two cars surrounding their car. Fernando was shot in the head and Irma cried out for a doctor for her son. She was grabbed and taken away. Her body has not been recovered and it is believed she was executed. She had been the first white, middle-class, professional woman to have been abducted and presumably murdered in Guatemala during that time. Her son, Sergio, who had been sent to live in a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in 1970 after the grenade incident, had received menacing, anonymous phone calls in Israel after his mother's disappearance for two years, claiming that she had gone crazy and was living in a basement. The Inter American Press Association investigated the case of Irma Flaquer as part of its impunity project, and the case was the first that the IAPA brought to the

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme'', ...

, which ruled that the Guatemalan government was responsible for her disappearance, at the very least by not protecting her as a public figure. The investigation also led to a book ''Disappeared, A Journalist Silenced'' by June Carolyn Erlick (Seal Press, 2004).

References

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External links

Irma Flaquer Azurdia
(Crimes Against Journalists: Impunity Project) {{DEFAULTSORT:Flaquer, Irma 1938 births 1980 deaths 1980s missing person cases 20th-century Guatemalan writers 20th-century journalists 20th-century women writers Enforced disappearances in Guatemala Guatemalan journalists Guatemalan people of Catalan descent Guatemalan women journalists Journalists killed in Guatemala Missing people Missing person cases in Guatemala People from Guatemala City

Biography

Disappearance

See also

References

External links