Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his counterpart in Guatemala on the killing of human rights defenders and community leaders Luis Marroquin, Jose Can Xol and Mateo Chaman Paau this month.

The Government unequivocally condemns attacks on human rights defenders. Our Embassy in Guatemala City monitors the human rights situation in Guatemala closely and embassy staff regularly engage with human rights defenders. Officials participate in the EU's informal human rights monitoring mechanism, the Filter Group, which reviews threats and attacks against human rights defenders and raises concerns with the Guatemalan authorities collectively. They will discuss these cases at the next opportunity.