“Anti-mafia” prosecutor and Fund grantee partner Virginia Laparra Rivas has been recognized by the Alliance for Lawyers at Risk as this year’s recipient of the Sir Henry Brooke Award. Learn more about Virginia Laparra’s courageous work against corruption and organized crime in Guatemala.
The Fund for Global Human Rights is pleased to share that lawyer and Fund grantee partner Virginia Laparra Rivas has been recognized by the Alliance for Lawyers at Risk with the 2025 Sir Henry Brooke Award for her courageous work fighting organized crime and corruption in Guatemala.
Virginia Laparra is widely known in Guatemala as the “anti-mafia prosecutor” for her dedicated work dismantling organized crime. In 2016, she was appointed head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala—part of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG, a national body set up in 2006 to combat organized crime, armed groups, and corruption. Over the course of six years, she investigated and prosecuted human rights violations linked to state corruption involving hundreds of millions of dollars.
But Virginia Laparra’s work made her a target for powerful enemies.
In 2019, then Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales effectively shuttered CICIG and cracked down on its advocates. Virginia Laparra was accused of abusing her authority and was arbitrarily detained for her critical work—part of a systematic campaign to clamp down on prosecutors, human rights defenders, and journalists exposing corruption in Guatemala.
In 2022, after a deliberately prolonged trial—and despite a lack of evidence and grave violations of due process—Virginia Laparra was sentenced by a Guatemala City court to four years in prison. She spent two years in harsh conditions, including solitary confinement.
After sustained pressure by the international community (including being named by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience), the Guatemalan authorities released Virginia Laparra under house arrest. But amid continued harassment, persecution, and the discovery of two additional criminal proceedings against her, she was forced to seek asylum in Mexico (where she currently resides).
“Virginia Laparra is a pillar of the anti-corruption movement in Guatemala,” said Ricardo González Bernal, who directs the Fund’s Latin America program. “Despite persistent and ongoing persecution, she has courageously continued to fight for the rule of law and the integrity of Guatemala’s institutions. We are immensely proud to support her work and congratulate her on this much-deserved recognition and achievement.”
The Sir Henry Brooke Award is presented annually by the Alliance for Lawyers at Risk, a UK-based charity that supports lawyers and human rights defenders working in challenging contexts. The award recognizes a legal practitioner or human rights defender for their outstanding contribution to the promotion, protection, and advancement of human rights.
“[This award] represents the recognition of all that those of us who believed in a project of justice and the fight against impunity and corruption have sacrificed. Receiving this award is a way of appreciating all that we have left behind—our life project, our family, our land, and even our own profession,” said Virginia Laparra. “These are sacrifices we have made, not for ourselves, but for a greater cause—the opportunity to offer our country a future without the shadows of corruption, so that we can finally move forward as a nation towards development, respect, and justice.
“I loved being a prosecutor,” she adds. “The price has been very high, but without a doubt, I would do it again.”
Learn more about Virginia Laparra’s story:
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