Irma Flaquer Azurdia (5 September 1938 -

disappeared An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the intent of placing ...

16 October 1980) was 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 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 and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. 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 is the newspaper with the most regional editions in Ecuador. It specializes in regional news, and runs a total of 10 regional editions. The headquarters of are located in Quito Quito (; ), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital c ...

'', 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 (Argentine newspaper), Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argen ...

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

Disappearance

In 1970, a car bomb was set off as she opened the door, injuring her hand and leaving her deaf in one ear. 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. The

Inter American Press Association The Inter American Press Association (IAPA; Spanish: ''Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa'', SIP) is a press advocacy group representing major media organizations in North America, South America and the Caribbean. It is made up of more than 1,300 ...

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 language, Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des ...

, 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 Guatemalan women writers Disappeared journalists Enforced disappearances in Guatemala Guatemalan journalists Guatemalan people of Catalan descent Guatemalan women journalists Journalists killed in Guatemala Missing person cases in Guatemala People from Guatemala City

Biography

Disappearance

See also

References

External links