Jacinto David Mendoza Toma was a young human rights defender and youth leader from San Juan Cotzal in the Guatemalan department of Quiché.

The 21-year-old was a member of the Paraíso Desigual collective and studied at Ixil University, which is dedicated to the education of the descendants of the same indigenous peoples who survived the genocide of the eighties. He was in his second year of studies in Rural Community Development.

Jacinto David died on 6 September, 2018 some days after suffering multiple injuries during an attack by unknown assailants. Two weeks before his death, his name and photograph were included in a list of people who supposedly “participate in the creation of disinformation campaigns” published on the website “Frente por la Verdad y los Hechos” (Front for Truth and Facts.)

In a statement issued after the murder, Ixil University lamented the “gratuitous violence which resulted in a loss so painful that none of the usual reasons for consolation can be sought: neither disease, nor old age, nor the sort of misfortune that, in one fell swoop, can end a life.”