Amílcar Méndez Urízar is a

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

n human rights activist and former

Congressman A member of congress (MOC), also known as a congressman or congresswoman, is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The t ...

(1996–2000). In July 1988 he founded the Council for Ethnic Communities "We Are All Equal" (CERJ). In 1990 he was the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and the Carter-Menil Human Rights Prize. In October 2003, 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 language, Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des ...

requested that Guatemala adopt precautionary measures to protect the life and person of Méndez in the wake of death threats made against him and the murder of another CERJ activist. On 17 August 2007, his son José Emanuel was murdered in

Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...

.Asesinan a hijo de Amílcar Méndez
''El Periódico'', 2007-08-18.

References

External links

Living people Guatemalan human rights activists Nonviolence advocates Guatemalan activists Members of the Congress of Guatemala Year of birth missing (living people) Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates {{Guatemala-politician-stub