Hannah Alpert-Abrams and Alex Galarza. “Partnering on Digital Archives and Human Rights in Guatemala.” Re:Thinking. January 23, 2018.
In 2005, delegates from the Guatamalan Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office stumbled upon a cache of documents in an abandoned hospital building in Guatemala City. In response, the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN) was formed to preserve, clean, organize, and provide access to the records, which document the Guatemala National Police from 1882 to 1996. While the archive serves many different research populations, its primary role today is to shed light on the role of the national police in kidnapping, torturing, and killing citizens during the period of civil war (1960-1996). This can help people whose loved ones were disappeared by the police to find closure. In some cases, it can also help legal teams pursue justice.