GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The aid group Save the Children said there is nothing to support accusations of misconduct, speaking after Guatemalan prosecutors raided its offices in the Central American country looking for evidence of alleged abuse of migrant children.
“We have been shocked and puzzled by the unprecedented search of our offices by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Guatemala,” the organization said in a press release Thursday night hours after the raid.
The group said it was not aware of any specific accusations against it.
“We defend the rights of children and adolescents and ensure that they survive, learn and are protected from harm in more than 100 countries around the world,” said the group, which has worked in Guatemala since 1976.
The raid came after prosecutors — themselves accused by the U.S. of corruption and trying to undermine Guatemala’s democracy — claimed Save the Children and a number of other non-governmental groups could “be participating in child trafficking operations.”
Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche said the raid was to search for evidence from a complaint made relating to those claims, which was “transnational and of great importance” because it involves children’s rights.
The escalating controversy began last week when Fox News contributor Sara Carter published a video of Angel Pineda, the secretary general of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, saying it had received a complaint about the organizations. Carter was the first to announce the raid on social media before police and prosecutors had even entered the offices.
In the video, Pineda called not on the Biden administration or other international authorities, but on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to aid him in the investigation.
Paxton, a Republican, has railed against U.S. President Joe Biden's handling of rising migration to the U.S.-Mexico border. In February, he tried to sue a migrant aid group in El Paso, accusing it of “facilitating illegal entry to the United States, alien harboring, human smuggling, and operating a stash house.” The effort was blocked by a judge.
“The chaos at the southern border has created an environment where NGOs, funded with taxpayer money from the Biden Administration, facilitate astonishing horrors," Paxton said in a statement.
Those allegations sounded strikingly similar to ones made by Guatemalan prosecutors in a letter sent to Paxton earlier this month.
The Guatemalan government confirmed that the prosecutor’s office contacted Paxton without going through the diplomatic protocols required for international collaboration.
Paxton's office and Guatemala's prosecutor's office did not respond for a request for comment and more information on the case.
The Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office's communication department said Friday that it would not go into details because the case was “related to children and adolescents.”
Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras has faced international criticism for years and has been sanctioned by the U.S. government for purported undemocratic actions. Since Guatemalans elected reform-oriented President Bernardo Arévalo last August, Porras has grown increasingly isolated and her office has attempted to find allies among some far-right U.S. lawmakers.
Both Pineda and Curruchiche are sanctioned and banned from entering more than 40 countries, including the United States and the European Union, for hindering the fight against corruption in Guatemala and undermining the country's democracy. This notably includes failed efforts to prevent Arévalo from taking office earlier this year.
Associated Press correspondent Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Agents from the Attorney General's office leave Save the Children's headquarters after conducting a raid of the installation, in Guatemala City, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The NGO is being investigated for an alleged complaint about the violation of migrant children's rights, according to statements made by prosecutor Rafel Curruchiche. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Police agents stand guard on the perimeters of the Save the Children's headquarters as agents from the Attorney General's office wind up their raid, in Guatemala City, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The NGO is being investigated for an alleged complaint about the violation of migrant children's rights, according to statements made by prosecutor Rafel Curruchiche. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
An agent from the Attorney General's office carries evidence collected at Save the Children's headquarters during a raid, in Guatemala City, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The NGO is being investigated for an alleged complaint about the violation of migrant children's rights, according to statements made by prosecutor Rafel Curruchiche. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
An agent from the Attorney General's office enters Save the Children's headquarters during a raid, in Guatemala City, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The NGO is being investigated for an alleged complaint about the violation of migrant children's rights, according to statements made by prosecutor Rafel Curruchiche. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance.
The extraordinary order, which includes confiscating broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites, is believed to be the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet.
Al Jazeera went off Israel’s main cable and satellite providers in the hours after the order. However, its website and multiple online streaming links still operated Sunday.
The network has reported the Israeli-Hamas war nonstop since the militants' initial cross-border attack Oct. 7 and has maintained 24-hour coverage in the Gaza Strip amid Israel's grinding ground offensive that has killed and wounded members of its own staff. While including on-the-ground reporting of the war's casualties, its Arabic arm often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other militant groups in the region.
“Al Jazeera reporters harmed Israel’s security and incited against soldiers,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “It’s time to remove the Hamas mouthpiece from our country.”
Al Jazeera issued a statement vowing it will “pursue all available legal channels through international legal institutions in its quest to protect both its rights and journalists, as well as the public’s right to information.”
“Israel’s ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to conceal its actions in the Gaza Strip, stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law,” the network said. “Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation and threats will not deter Al Jazeera."
Israeli media said the order allows Israel to block the channel from operating in the country for 45 days.
The Israeli government has taken action against individual reporters over the decades since its founding in 1948, but broadly allows for a rambunctious media scene that includes foreign bureaus from around the world, even from Arab nations.
That changed with a law passed last month, which Netanyahu's office says allows the government to take action against a foreign channel seen as “harming the country.”
Israeli Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi later published footage online of authorities raiding a hotel room Al Jazeera had been broadcasting from in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to one day have for their future state. He said officials seized some of the channel's equipment there.
“We finally are able to stop Al Jazeera’s well-oiled incitement machine that harms the security of the country,” Karhi said.
The ban did not appear to affect the channel’s operations in the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, where Israel wields control but which are not sovereign Israeli territory.
The decision threatens to heighten tensions with Qatar at a time when the Doha government is playing a key role in mediation efforts to halt the war in Gaza, along with Egypt and the United States.
Qatar has had strained ties with Netanyahu in particular since he made comments suggesting that Qatar is not exerting enough pressure on Hamas to prompt it to relent in its terms for a truce deal. Qatar hosts Hamas leaders in exile at a political office in Doha.
The sides appear to be close to striking a deal, but multiple previous rounds of talks have ended with no agreement.
In a statement Sunday, Hamas condemned the Israeli government order, calling on international organizations to take measures against Israel.
The Foreign Press Association in Israel criticized the order.
“With this decision, Israel joins a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station,” it said. “This is a dark day for the media.”
Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, criticized the Israeli order as “an assault on freedom of the press.”
“Rather than trying to silence reporting on its atrocities in Gaza, the Israeli government should stop committing them,” he added.
Shortly after the government's decision, Cabinet members from the National Unity party criticized the timing, saying it “may sabotage the efforts to finalize the negotiations and stems from political considerations.” The party said that in general, it supported the decision.
Israel has long had a rocky relationship with Al Jazeera, accusing it of bias. Relations took a major downturn nearly two years ago when Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was killed during an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.
Those relations further deteriorated following the outbreak of Israel’s war against Hamas on Oct. 7, when the militant group carried out a cross-border attack in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Since then, the Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed over 34,000 people, according to local health officials there, who don't break figures down into civilians and combatants.
Israeli media largely has avoided the plight of those in the Gaza Strip, instead focusing on the Oct. 7 attack, the hostages held there and tales of Israeli military heroism.
Meanwhile in December, an Israeli strike killed an Al Jazeera cameraman as he reported on the war in southern Gaza. The channel’s bureau chief in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh, was wounded in the same attack. Dahdouh, a correspondent well-known to Palestinians during many wars, later evacuated Gaza but only after Israeli strikes killed his wife, three of his children and a grandson.
Al Jazeera is one of the few international media outlets to remain in Gaza throughout the war, broadcasting bloody scenes of airstrikes and overcrowded hospitals and accusing Israel of massacres.
Criticism of the channel is not new, however. The U.S. government singled out the broadcaster during America’s occupation of Iraq after its 2003 invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and for airing videos of the late al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.
Al Jazeera has been closed or blocked by other Mideast governments.
Most notably in 2013, Egyptian authorities raided a luxury hotel used by Al Jazeera as an operating base after the military takeover that followed mass protests against President Mohammed Morsi. Three Al Jazeera staff members received 10-year prison sentences, but were released in 2015 following widespread international criticism.
Gambrell reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Jack Jeffrey in Jerusalem contributed.
Palestinian politics analyst Nehad Abu Ghoush is live at Al Jazeera broadcast inside the network's office in the West Bank city of Ramallah Sunday, May 5, 2024. Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
The office of late Al Jazeera network journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is decorated with memorial items, inside the network's office, in the West Bank city of Ramallah Sunday, May 5, 2024. Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
A corner is dedicated for late Al Jazeera network journalist Shireen Abu Akleh inside the network's office, in the West Bank city of Ramallah Sunday, May 5, 2024. Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
International correspondent of Al Jazeera English Zein Basravi reports live from the network's office in the West Bank city of Ramallah Sunday, May 5, 2024. Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Al Jazeera network office in the West Bank city of Ramallah Sunday, May 5, 2024. Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Al Jazeera cameraman Zaid Aqrat works at his network's office in the West Bank city of Ramallah Sunday, May 5, 2024. Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Al Jazeera broadcast engineer Mohammad Salameh works at the Master Control Room unit inside the network's office in the West Bank city of Ramallah Sunday, May 5, 2024. Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel on Oct. 28, 2023. Netanyahu pledged Tuesday, April 30 to launch an incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering from the almost 7-month-long war, just as cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas appear to be gaining steam. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
