A hundred Guatemalans claim from their vehicles against confinement

Clad in allegorical masks with the national coat of arms in the center, some personalities known in the country for the pulse they had against the anti-corruption fight during the expired mandate of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) left their homes to conduct themselves in group to the central park and demonstrate their rejection of the restrictions.

Former deputies such as the ultra-conservative Fernando Linares Beltranena - lawyer for the retired military intelligence general Luis Fernando Ortega Menaldo -, members of the organization Guatemala Inmortal or the director of Public Relations of the Francisco Marroquín University (private), Luis Figueroa, paraded.

The protesters entered the Historical Center of the capital and one of the main avenues of the country and ran into a tense moment with a group of riot police from the National Civil Police that prevented them from passing, because during the state of calamity Due to the coronavirus, the gathering of people is prohibited, according to the Law of Public Order.

Minutes after arguing that they were being denied free movement, the police wall was dispersed so that the protesters entered the Plaza de la Constitución, where some of them got out of their vehicles with their flags and continued to throw slogans in front of the Palace. Nacional de la Cultura (Government office).

Another of the visible faces of the movement against government measures was the ex-candidate for Congress and columnist Giovanni Fratti, who assured the media that "crisis management has already failed. The virus has already spread to the president (Alejandro Giammattei ) of control, it has already left the containment areas and the only thing left is to support the president in the health issue. "

Asked about the fear of becoming infected due to having gathered outside their vehicles in the central park, Fratti said he was sure of the "sanitary measures" they established, such as the use of the mandatory mask (by the Government) or the alleged distancing. social that was mocked at times, when some anonymous participants came to shout in favor of freeing the economy.

"I don't have to fall dead, we want to work," one of them shouted. Another asked for "public transport", suspended by Giammattei from March 15.

One woman claimed that "without work there is no life" and another woman said: "Let us work, president."

Fratti agreed that the non-conformists have "the right to rebel against illegal orders. We are here to tell the president that we are not going to abide by the 15-day closure," because the president last Sunday suggested the possibility of establishing a curfew. Total for two weeks if the contagion trend rose to 500 cases a day.

After stressing that they were not seeking "government alms", Fratti emphasized that "all the most advanced economies in the world: Italy, Spain, the United States, Germany, all those economies that have many more cases than Guatemala are already opening their economy. Thus which is a lie that we are going to heal locked up. "

Currently, the country registers 4,145 positive cases of COVID-19 with 68 deaths, the first of them registered on March 15, two days after the first case was detected.

Since March 22, the Government of Guatemala decreed a partial curfew in the afternoons, which was originally established from four in the afternoon to four in the morning and which now prohibits the movement from five in the afternoon to five in the afternoon. the morning, in addition to a complete closure to mobility on weekends.