PBI-Guatemala visits criminalized Maya Q’eqchi’ defenders Jorge Coc and Marcelino Xol in prison in Cobán, Alta Verapaz

On November 28, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“#PBI accompanies. Today we visited Jorge Coc and Marcelino Xol, criminalized defenders of the land and prisoners at the Coban Preventive Detention Center.”

In their December 2021 monthly update, PBI-Guatemala explained: “Jorge Coc Coc and Marcelino Xol Cucul [are] human rights defenders and community leaders from Choctún Basilá, who have been criminalized and imprisoned since 2018.”

Both are Maya Q’eqchi’ defenders with the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) in the Verapaz region that fights for access to land and against continued evictions and dispossession from ancestral lands.

In January 2022, the German newspaper Junge Welt also reported: “Jorge Coc Coc and Marcelino Xol Cucul, local indigenous authorities from the Choctun Basilá community in Cobán County and members of the CCDA, were sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2019 on fabricated charges of murder and attempted murder.”

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) Verapaz since July 2018.