· In 2019, the Bank approved loans to support the Territorial Control Plan with $200 million, including funds to the National Civil Police, the Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation. In November 2022, officials from the Bank told Human Rights Watch that these funds had not been disbursed and that the loans were being “reformulated” to replace the National Civil Police and the Ministry of Defense as the entities charged with executing the funds. However, El Salvador’s proposed 2023 budget indicates that the Ministry of Justice and Public Safety is expected to receive $20 million from these loans to develop the police’s infrastructure in 2023, roughly 67 percent of the funds allocated for this purpose in the budget. Similarly, the Defense Ministry’s proposed 2023 budget includes funds from one of these loans for $17 million, roughly 7 percent of the ministry’s expected total budget.
In 2014 and 2019, the Bank approved loans to build and equip new headquarters for the Attorney General’s Office, for a total of over $70 million, which have yet to be disbursed. The Attorney General’s Office budget indicates it expected to receive over $35 million from this loan in 2022, which represents more than 30 percent of the office’s total funding for the year. The 2023 proposed budget notes that the office is expected to receive almost $44 million from these loans in 2023, roughly 35 percent of the office’s expected budget for the year. In November 2022, an official from the Bank said that they expected to disburse funds from this loan in 2023.
In 2012, the Bank approved a $71 million loan to “strengthen the prison system” in El Salvador. The Bank has already disbursed roughly $57 millon. In September 2022, the bank’s directory approved a resolution replacing the Ministry of Justice and Public Safety with the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation as the entity charged with executing the funds. The change was requested by Salvadoran authorities as a result of the December 2021 decision by the US Department of Treasuary to sanction Osiris Luna Meza, the head of the prison system and vice minister of justice and public safety, due to his alleged involvement in closed-door negotiations with gangs.
In May 2021, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced it was redirecting its funding away from Salvadoran government institutions, the police, and the Access to Public Information Agency and toward civil society and human rights groups. USAID said its decision was “in response” to the removal of the Attorney General and the judges of the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber, as well as “larger concerns about transparency and accountability.” USAID has not publicly announced how much funding was redirected.
The US government has taken additional steps to support civil society groups in El Salvador. This includes the Voices Initiative, launched in June 2022 by USAID, which will put approximately $42 million toward activities that “protect, defend, and promote civic space in Central America.”
In 2022, the European Union redirected $8 million in support for El Salvador’s National Civil Police toward the Ministry of Education.
Cristosal and Human Rights Watch documented widespread human rights violations committed during the state of emergency in El Salvador.
The National Civil Police and the army conducted dozens of raids, particularly in low-income neighborhoods, arresting thousands of people across El Salvador’s 14 states over the eight-month period covered by this report. Over 58,000 people have been detained in the context of the state of emergency, according to official figures, including over 1,600 children. Additionally, the police and the army report killing at least 84 alleged gang members during “confrontations.”
Human rights violations documented by Human Rights Watch and Cristosal include arbitrary arrests, short-term enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment in detention, and due process violations. Ninety people detained during the state of emergency have reportedly died in custody. Authorities failed to meaningfully investigate these deaths and, in some cases, detainees who died in prison did not receive the medication they needed.
Many arbitrary arrests appear to have been driven by a policy of “quotas” imposed by commanders in the National Civil Police, according to police officers. Police officers told Human Rights Watch and Cristosal that between March and September, emergency officers were pressed to arrest a specific number of people per day. Witnesses said that during raids in low-income neighborhoods security forces arrested people indiscriminately with the apparent purpose of filling their trucks to their full capacity.
High-level authorities, including President Bukele and Vice President Ulloa, have consistently tried to justify human rights violations as supposedly acceptable “errors” committed during what they called a “war against gangs.” At the same time, President Bukele has signaled that security forces will be shielded from accountability if they engage in abuses and said that the government will be “watching judges who favor criminals,” in what appears to be an effort to intimidate judges and prosecutors and keep them from investigating human rights violations or releasing people who they consider arbitrarily detained.
Such rhetoric, coupled with the government’s control of courts and the Attorney General’s Office, appears to have created a widespread sense that security officers can commit human rights violations with impunity. A mother who witnessed the detention of her son said that police officers told her, “We can arrest anyone we want.” Another relative of a victim said that officers told her that “under the state of emergency, we can go as far as we want.”
Arbitrary Detention and Short-term Enforced Disappearances
Human Rights Watch and Cristosal gathered evidence of over 1,100 cases of arbitrary detention committed during the state of emergency and documented in detail 130 of them, including 12 that amount to short-term enforced disappearances.
In virtually all cases that Human Rights Watch and Cristosal documented, people were taken from their homes or work or picked up on the street without being shown a search or arrest warrant by security forces.
Salvadoran authorities argue that an arrest warrant is not required to arrest alleged gang members because, in their view, these people are in “permanent flagrancy” as gang membership is considered a “continuous offense.” Such a broad and vague standard makes it possible to arbitrarily detain anyone security forces claim belongs to a gang, bypassing the usual legal requirement to obtain an arrest warrant.
Many arrests appear to be based on the appearance or social background of the detainees, or on questionable evidence, such as anonymous calls and uncorroborated allegations on social media. “Being poor is now a crime in El Salvador,” a relative of two people detained in a low-income neighborhood said. Officers repeatedly searched for tattoos on people’s bodies while conducting arrests, presumably for evidence of gang affiliation, according to relatives of detained people and victims.
On August 8, the digital media outlet El Faro revealed records by the Attorney General’s Office suggesting that scores of arrests had been conducted based on questionable or no evidence. Out of 690 cases examined by El Faro, 160 detentions were purportedly based on detainees’ “suspicious appearance,” 73 others on “nervous appearance,” and 34 on “anonymous reports.”
In the cases documented by Human Rights Watch and Cristosal, detainees were rarely informed of the reasons for their arrest. In some cases officers said they were “following the orders of their superiors” or “orders from the president.” In some others, security forces portrayed the arrests as “informal questioning.” However, many people taken for such “questioning” were later reported as being under arrest.
Witnesses said that in some cases police or soldiers hit people and family members during the arrest or threatened to arrest them as well. Cristosal reported 77 cases in which family members of those detained were beaten or threatened with being arrested.
On July 18, 2022, soldiers detained Noemí Abrego (pseudonym), 16, in the state of Sonsonate. Abrego works with her mother selling food at a market and was waiting for the bus outside of her home when four soldiers stopped her. They did not show her a warrant or explain the reason for the arrest.
Abrego’s sister, who witnessed the detention through a window, saw a soldier pushed Abrego to the ground and told her mother. Her mother went outside and told soldiers that Abrego was pregnant. One soldier replied that she should stop talking or he “was going to arrest her” as well.
Abrego was taken to a police station in Sonsonate. She was held there for five days and then transferred to a juvenile detention facility in the city of San Salvador.
Fifteen days after her arrest, Abrego was taken to a judge for the first time. She was accused of “unlawful association” and sent to pretrial detention, her mother, who attended the hearing, said.
On October 6, her mother went to the juvenile detention facility to leave her clothes and sanitary supplies. She was told by a prison guard that her daughter had had a miscarriage two months after her arrest. When the mother asked why she had not been informed, an officer said they “had forgotten to let her know.”
Abrego remained in detention as of November.
On April 30, police officers kicked and beat Lucas Sánchez, 18, and Ricardo Marín, 28 (pseudonyms) as they were arrested at their home in Chalatenango state, a relative said. The police said they were arresting them because of the “state of emergency.” The relative, who was eight months pregnant at the time, tried to defend them, but a police officer pushed her against a police car, saying she could also be detained if she didn’t stop asking questions. The relative said she bled for a week and a health care worker told her the pregnancy was at risk. Sánchez and Marín remain imprisoned at time of writing.
Human Rights Watch and Cristosal gathered information about 14 cases in which people with psychosocial disabilities or mental health conditions were detained and documented five such cases in detail. These arrests can lead to damaging long-term consequences for their physical and mental health.
People with disabilities are entitled to due process safeguards and what are known as procedural accommodations—in this case to enable them to understand the reason for their detention and their rights—to ensure equality with other detainees. Human Rights Watch and Cristosal have not been able to determine whether authorities have fulfilled these obligations in these cases or others. Failing to do so puts people with disabilities at risk of abuse.
On May 1, 2022, police officers detained Roberto Ramírez (pseudonym), 25, in the state of Chalatenango. Ramírez, who sold fruits at the local market and has a mental health condition, was stopped by police when he took the family’s dogs out.
Officers asked him for an identification document and, when he showed it, they said he was being detained for “collaborating with gangs.” They did not show an arrest warrant, a witness said. When the family told the officers that Ramírez had a mental health condition, one agent responded that “if [Ramírez] died, [the officer] would bring him to me dead,” a relative recalled.
The officers also arrested Ramírez’s brother, who arrived at the house later when they were taking Ramírez to celebrate a relative’s birthday party.
The brothers were sent to a nearby police station and, two days later, to the Mariona prison. They have been held incommunicado since their arrest. On May 13, a judge charged them with “unlawful association” and ordered their detention pending trial.
Police and soldiers detained Edubai Molina (pseudonym), 23, at his home in Cuscatlán state on April 12. A relative said that Molina has a condition that causes bone deformation.
Security forces did not tell him or a relative who was present why he was being detained; they only said it was “due to the state of emergency.” He was taken to a police station in the municipality of Santa Cruz Michapa, Cuscatlán state, and, a few hours later, moved to a police station in the municipality of Coatepeque, Santa Ana state. There, an officer told his family that he had to comply with an “arrest quota.” The officer acknowledged that the detention was unjust, his relative said, but alleged he could not do anything about it.
Molina was transferred to the Mariona prison, but his family was not informed. Unaware of his whereabouts, his relatives looked for him for almost three months, until in July, a prison guard acknowledged that he was in Mariona.
A judicial document that Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that on September 8 a judge ordered that Molina be released on bail. But as of November 23, he remained in detention, in apparent violation of the judge’s decision. His family is not aware of any judicial orders overturning the release order.
After conducting the arrests, security forces systematically posted photographs of the detainees on the police’s and army’s institutional accounts on social media platforms, accusing them of being gang members or “terrorists.” In some cases, the photos showed that the detainees had been injured, apparently during their arrest, and President Bukele minimized the incidents or made fun of them in an apparent attempt to justify possibly abusive behavior.
Human Rights Watch and Cristosal received detailed reports of over 30 cases in which people were not informed of the whereabouts of their loved ones. Some have not been allowed to communicate with their relatives for days or weeks. In several cases, officers refused to provide information about the detainees’ whereabouts, in what amounts to an enforced disappearance under international law.
Lack of information about detainees’ health conditions and, at times, about their whereabouts drove hundreds of family members, mostly women, to gather outside the Mariona prison for days or weeks between April and May.
The police arrested Tomás Rivera (pseudonym), 21, a construction worker, on April 24, 2022, at his home in Chalatenango state. When his family asked why he was being detained, an officer said it was because “[I] do not like you,” a relative told Human Rights Watch. Rivera had an initial hearing on May 1, and he was charged with belonging to a “terrorist organization.”
On April 30, the police detained Tomás’ brother, Martín Rivera (pseudonym), a 28-year-old mechanic, and his brother-in-law, Juan González (pseudonym), an 18-year-old construction worker. Officers did not provide a reason for the detention. A relative said three officers kicked and beat the two men.
Authorities did not give the family any information about the detainees’ whereabouts. A family member spent 24 days sleeping outside the Mariona prison awaiting news about the three. She was pregnant and waited with her 2-year-old son and, for some days, other family members, including children.
On the night of May 24, the police dispersed the crowds outside of the Mariona prison using what several witnesses believed to be tear gas and water cannons. Officers stated that they would “beat the bugs,” in an apparent threat of retaliation against their relatives in detention, the relative said.
On May 21, authorities established “information center[s]” outside prisons following what the government described as “challenges” in providing information to relatives about their loved ones. The government described the purpose of these centers as providing information to relatives about detainees’ “whereabouts, pavilion and cell.” Interviewees told Human Rights Watch and Cristosal that these centers did provide some information on detainees’ whereabouts including their pavilion and cell. One interviewee said, however, that when she asked about her relative, a person working at the center in the Mariona prison told her that if “she asked again she would be detained.”
While establishing these centers is an important step toward fulfilling authorities’ obligations to provide information on detainees’ whereabouts, they do not address the fact that many victims have been held incommunicado. They also do not allow relatives to obtain other crucial information about their loved ones, including on their health. The centers were created two months into the state of emergency, when thousands had already been detained and hundreds of relatives were gathering outside of prisons to obtain information.
Police officers detained brothers Eric and Ricardo Gallegos (pseudonyms), ages 23 and 26, on April 5 and 6, respectively, in Santa Ana state. Officers said the brothers were “gang members” and detained them without showing an arrest or search warrant, a relative said.
Officers arrested Eric in a food market and, a day later, took Ricardo from his home. Officers did not tell the family where they were taking Ricardo, so the family followed the police to a station in Santa Ana. On April 7, the family saw the brothers taken out of the station and placed on a bus, apparently to move them to another detention facility. When a relative asked where they were being taken, officers said they “could not provide information about their whereabouts.”
Their family was not aware of their whereabouts for two months. In June, when the government announced that relatives would be allowed to leave clothes and medicine for detainees, family members decided to visit the Izalco prison to see if the brothers were held there. Guards said that they were detained there and received the package, but relatives have not been able to see them since their arrest.
On the morning of April 16, police officers detained William Gavidia (pseudonym), 24, when he was heading to a bus station in Monteliz, in the state of San Salvador, according to his brother and a family friend.
Officers asked for his phone and identification document, which he provided. They arrested him, saying he was in a different neighborhood than the one noted on his identification document, and accused him of being “a gang member hiding from justice.”
Officers threatened his brother with arrest. “You can’t do anything,” one of them said, “and if you keep asking for his rights, I will detain you and take you to a police station.”
They did not say where they were taking him. His relatives and a friend, who is a lawyer, toured detention centers to try to find him. In one of them, known as “El Penalito,” they recalled seeing what they estimated to be more than one hundred women waiting outside to learn if their relatives were detained there.
After a six-hour search, officers told them that Gavidia was held in the San Marcos police station. A police officer told the lawyer that, “We did not find anything [to detain] him but we are not going to release him.” “There is nothing you can do now. We are in a ‘state of emergency,’” an officer told them, “We cannot release him, these are the orders from above.”
Gavidia has not been able to talk with his family since. On April 25, a judge charged him with “unlawful association” and sent him to pretrial detention.
In some specific cases, officers have arrested or threatened to arrest people in apparent retaliation for previous incidents involving those detained or their families, including reporting police conduct to the Attorney General’s Office or to the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office. In some cases, police harassment and fear of being arbitrarily arrested has forced people to move or hide in different places. Cristosal has documented over 50 cases of people who have fled their homes during the state of emergency, fearing arbitrary arrests.
In April 2022, the police arrived at the home of Elbin Hernández (pseudonym), a 26-year-old student, in the state of San Salvador and threatened to detain and kill him, a relative told Cristosal. He fled his house.
For over ten years, the relative said, police had repeatedly harassed Hernández, demanding that he provide information on gang members who operate in his community. The relative reported the officers to the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office; one police officer was dismissed temporarily, and the harassment ended for some time.
But when Hernández turned 18, the same officer arrived at his home with an arrest order and accused him of murder. He was held in the Quezaltepeque prison for three years. He was acquitted and released in 2019. Soon after, officers arrested him again, this time accusing him of drug possession, but he was released on parole.
The relative said that during the state of emergency, police officers have repeatedly arrived at his home searching for him. Currently, Hernández is in hiding, fearing that officers will arrest him again.
Abusive Prison Conditions and Ill-Treatment in Custody
Prisons in El Salvador have for decades been overcrowded and marked by violence and poor access to basic services, such as food, drinking water, and health care.
Overcrowding has been rooted in part in policies of mass incarceration implemented by previous governments in response to gang violence. By 2020, the official capacity of the prison system was about 27,000 detainees, but it housed over 39,000 according to official statistics.
The excessive use of pretrial detention is another factor driving high levels of prison overcrowding. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has noted that authorities have routinely resorted to pretrial detention “based on the type of offense, with no sufficient and individualized consideration of each case to determine whether the necessary conditions for detention are met.”
However, overcrowding has seriously worsened during the state of emergency. Between late March and late November 2022, over 58,000 people have been detained, according to official figures, including over 51,000 who have been sent to pretrial detention. Such mass imprisonment raised El Salvador’s prison population to an estimated 95,000 detainees, 68,000 more than the country’s prison capacity.
According to the International Crisis Group, between March and October police detained over 7,500 women, over two times the number of women who were detained in El Salvador as of February 2021.
On April 19, the Legislative Assembly passed a law authorizing the creation of new prisons. Months later, President Bukele announced the construction of a sprawling new prison with capacity for 40,000 detainees, which he said would be ready “in 60 days.” The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the “Mandela Rules,” recommend that the “number of prisoners in closed prisons should not be so large that the individualization of treatment is hindered,” noting that “in some countries it is considered that the population of such prisons should not exceed 500.” A prison complex designed to hold tens of thousands of people would be clearly inconsistent with this international standard.
Human Rights Watch and Cristosal interviewed eight people who have been released from prison. They reported poor conditions and degrading and inhumane treatment at police stations and at Mariona, Izalco, Ilopango, Quezaltepeque, and Jucuapa prisons, as well as cases of torture in the Mariona and Izalco prisons, including beatings and waterboarding.
Currently, overcrowding is so extreme that detainees barely have space to move, they said. One interviewee said that at the Jucuapa prison detainees had to “sleep standing” or “take shifts to sleep lying on the floor.”
Such prison conditions, coupled in some cases with limited access to health services in detention, can seriously aggravate the health conditions of detainees. Human Rights Watch and Cristosal gathered evidence of over 240 cases of people detained with underlying health conditions, including diabetes, recent history of stroke, and meningitis.
The police detained Esteban Guevara (pseudonym), a 54-year-old Uber driver, on April 25, 2022, at his home in the state of San Salvador. According to a relative who spoke with Cristosal, officers said that they had received an “anonymous phone call” that accused him of “collaborating with gangs.”
Guevara was taken to the Mariona prison, prison guards said to a relative. Two months after his detention, a person who did not identify himself arrived at Guevara’s house and told relatives that Guevara had been hospitalized at the National Hospital since May 3. An official in the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office told a relative that Guevara had injured his left foot when he was taken to the Mariona prison, but he did not say how.
A relative who was able to visit Guevara briefly in the hospital learned that doctors amputated Guevara’s right leg and a part of his left foot.
Guevara is diabetic. His relatives took his medication to the Mariona prison before the amputation but do not know if prison authorities gave him access to it. On July 8, Guevara was taken to the Quezaltepeque prison, where he remained as of November 24.
On June 29 and July 12, 2022, then-Human Rights Ombudsperson Apolonio Tobar Serrano conducted hours-long visits to the Mariona and Izalco prisons, along with each prison director. He did not conduct private interviews with detainees. He found overcrowding in both prisons as a consequence of the “increase in the number of detainees.” His finding of overcrowding is consistent with tweets and videos published by President Bukele and other authorities that show thousands of detainees stripped to their underwear and jammed together on the floors inside prisons.
Although Tobar Serrano also said that detainees were receiving three meals a day and had access to daylight as well as adequate access to health care, President Bukele and other authorities have announced that detainees’ food would be “rationed” and they would not have access to sunlight. On April 3, President Bukele threatened to deny all prisoners food if the spike in murders in the country continued, an action that would amount to collective punishment prohibited under international human rights law.
(As discussed earlier in this report, lawmakers repeatedly threatened to oust Tobar Serrano, a vocal critic of the government’s human rights policies between 2019 and mid-2021.)
Selected Cases of Abuses in Detention
Lucrecia López (pseudonym), 48, Cuscatancingo
On March 30, police arrested Lucrecia López, a 48-year-old fruit seller, in Cuscatancingo, San Salvador state.After raiding the house without showing a search warrant, officers told her they were detaining her because “[they] needed to make numbers,” she said, in an apparent reference to the police’s arrest quotas. Officers took López to a police station in Cuscatancingo where they told her she was detained for “unlawful association.”
Later that day, she was transferred to a police station in Sacamil. López said she was held in a small room with 45 women; many had to sleep standing. There were no beds or mattresses in the cell, she said.
On April 2, she was moved to the women’s prison in Ilopango. López said that she slept on the floor for several days until her family sent her a mattress and some blankets. She said there was no running water.
On April 17, she was charged with “unlawful association” and placed in pre-trial detention. Sixty-five other people were charged in that hearing; all of them participated virtually.
On May 11, López was transferred to the Jucuapa prison, where she said conditions were “worse.” She had to sleep standing due to overcrowding. Some women died while she was detained, and others got sick, she said. López said she has a colon disease and that she did not receive medical treatment while in detention. She was released on bail on July 8.
Marcelo Gómez (pseudonym), 39, Cuscatancingo
Four police officers detained Marcelo Gómez, a-39-year-old taxi driver, outside his home in the municipality of Cuscatancingo, San Salvador state. After reviewing his ID card and phone, officers told Gómez’s partner that they were taking him to the police station as part of a “police routine” and that they would “release him soon.”
He spent three days at the police station, without knowing why he had been detained. He “cried all day.” The cell had capacity to house 25 people, but when he arrived, there were over 75 prisoners, he said. He slept on the floor next to “the bathroom,” a hole in the ground that smelled “terrible.”
He was sent to Izalco prison on the third day. During the transfer, officers tied his hands with plastic straps so tight that his fingers swelled: “I felt they were going to explode,” he said.
When they arrived, the prison’s guards ordered the group to take off their clothes. They were forced to kneel on the ground naked looking downwards for four hours in front of the prison’s gate, Gómez said. They were then forced to squat several times.
Guards took the group to a room with five barrels full of water with ice, he said. Fifteen guards forced him and others to go into the barrels for around two hours in total, as they questioned them about their supposed links with gangs.
He was forced into a barrel “around 30 times,” and was kept there for about a minute each time. Guards forced his head under water so he could not breathe. “I felt I was drowning,” he said. Guards repeatedly insulted them, calling them “dogs” and “scum” and saying they would “pay for what [they] had done.”
He was then taken to a cell along with 124 other people. Gómez said that the cell had capacity for 60 detainees. He had two meals per day, which normally “arrived dirty, and smelled bad.” Gómez said he lost 60 pounds in one month.
Some people were forced to sleep on the floor. Gómez said he had fever and pain in his ear. After eight days in pain, a guard took him to the infirmary where a health professional gave him two pills for an “ear infection” and sent him back to his cell. He also said he suffered from continuous coughs that were severe enough that he could not speak.
Around two weeks later, he was taken before a judge with around 400 other detainees. All of them participated virtually. In the hearing, he learned about the charges against him for the first time; authorities said they were accusing him of “unlawful association.” Gómez said he did not talk to his lawyer before or during the hearing. On June 2, he was released on bail.
Marvin Argueta (pseudonym), 45, Ilopango
On March 27, police officers detained Marvin Argueta a 45-year-old professor and taxi owner, at his taxi shop in the state of San Salvador. He was detained with seven other taxi drivers who were also there.
Officers asked Argueta to provide documentation of the taxis, which he did. But the police officer detained him, without showing an arrest warrant; according to Argueta the officer said it was due to the “state of emergency.”
He was taken to the Ilopango police station, where he was held for four days. It was the first time Argueta had been detained, he said. He received food once or twice a day. At the police station an officer told him he had been detained for “unlawful association.”
On March 30, Argueta was transferred, handcuffed, to the Izalco prison. He was forced to keep his head down during the transfer, Argueta said, and police officers kicked and beat up those who disobeyed. Before entering the prison, officers forced him to kneel on the ground for about two hours, under the sun, and to squat 25 times naked, Argueta said. “Welcome to hell,” prison guards said, according to Argueta.
As detainees walked to their cells, police officers stood on both sides and beat them, Argueta said. “We had to walk almost squatting, and without looking up,” he said. Argueta fell and officers kicked him repeatedly.
He said he vomited when he arrived in his cell and had fever for four days. The cell had capacity for 30 people but actually held 125, according to Argueta. He slept on the floor due to the overcrowding. There was no water or toilet paper in the cell. Guards told detainees they could not talk or pray, and threw tear gas in the cell every time someone disobeyed, Argueta said.
Argueta suffers hypertension and diabetes, but he said he did not receive health care while he was detained.
On April 14, he was taken to a virtual hearing with over 50 other people. The prosecutor accused all of them of belonging to a “terrorist organization.” Argueta told the judge that he was innocent. The judge charged him and sent him to pretrial detention.
On April 23, guards took him to the prison’s infirmary where they treated him for a severe flu. The next day he was sent to a hospital, where he spent one night, before being transferred to the Quezaltepeque prison.
In Quezaltepeque, food was only “tortillas and beans.” There were 90 people in the cell, which had capacity for 30, he said.
On September 8, he was taken to the Occidental Santa Ana prison, also known as “El Peñalón,” where he said conditions were better. He was taken to a health examination and had a bed. He also was able to be outside his cell and had three meals each day.
On September 22, he was released on $3,000 bail. He said he was held incommunicado during his entire time in detention.
Luis Orozco (pseudonym), 47, Ahuachapán
On April 20, police officers detained Luiz Orozco, a 47-year-old tractor driver, after they pulled over the bus he was using to go to work.
Officials said he was detained due to the “state of emergency.” Orozco was taken to a police station in Ahuachapán, where he was held for a day, handcuffed and without food or water, he said.
He was then moved to a police station in the municipality of Atiquizaya. Orozco’s wife said she went to the police station to leave food and clothes, but officials said he was not there.
Orozco was moved to the Mariona prison on April 22. When he arrived, he said, a prison guard told him and other detainees, “welcome to Mariona, a hell for gang members like you.” Five prison guards beat him with batons on his leg and back for approximately 10 minutes while he was handcuffed, he said. The guards said he had to “acknowledge that he was a gang member.”
He was taken to a cell with capacity for 80 people that held over 200, according to Orozco. Officers gave him one tortilla twice a day, and he had to share with another detainee. Sometimes he was also given water, he said.
There was one toilet inside the cell, but some days it did not have water. He spent one month and 10 days in that cell. Guards did not allow them to go outside, and the cell had no natural light. Orozco said he did not receive any health care and that he saw three people die in the cell.
On June 7, he was taken to what he described as a “punishment cell.” He said officers moved him and others there to “make room for other detainees.” The new cell was constantly dark, and detainees had to sleep standing due to overcrowding. There was no regular access to drinking water, and he could not shower.
On June 28, he was taken to participate virtually in a hearing, where he first learned he was being accused of “unlawful association.” The prosecutor said he had been detained “at a market along with a gang member.” Orozco denies this charge, but in the hearing, he was not allowed to intervene. He could only communicate with his lawyer through a screen that allowed him to respond “yes” or “no.”
After the hearing he was returned to the “punishment cell” where he spent 25 more days. He was then transferred to another cell where the conditions were better, he said. He spent one month there, and was released on August 22 on a $3,000 bail.
Deaths in Custody
In November 2022, Salvadoran authorities confirmed that 90 people had died in custody since March.
Deaths in prison in El Salvador are not new. In her last visit to El Salvador in 2018, the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions reported that “the number of deaths in detention is alarming,” particularly in maximum-security prisons, in part due to outbreaks of tuberculosis.
Cristosal has received reports of 86 deaths in custody since March. Human Rights Watch and Cristosal documented 11 cases in detail, based on interviews with victims’ relatives, medical records, analysis by forensic experts, and other evidence.
In one case, a person who died in custody was buried in a mass grave, without the family’s knowledge. This practice could amount to an enforced disappearance if authorities intentionally concealed the fate or whereabouts of the detainee.
In at least two other cases, officials appear to have failed to provide detainees the daily medication they required to manage underlying health conditions such as diabetes.
In at least four of the eleven cases documented in detail, photographs of the bodies show bruises. Members of the Independent Forensic Expert Group (IFEG) of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), who reviewed the photos and other evidence in two of the cases, told Human Rights Watch and Cristosal that the deaths were “suspicious” given that the bodies “present multiple lesions that show trauma that could have been caused by torture or ill-treatment that might have contributed to their deaths while in custody.”
Medical authorities reported some of these deaths as being the result of “pulmonary edema” and “cerebral edema.” But the IFEG noted that the death certificates “fail to meet internationally accepted medical practice and legal standards that require recording of not only immediate causes of death, but also all underlying causes and other significant conditions contributing to death.” In the experts’ view, Salvadoran authorities “failed to adhere to internationally accepted medical practices and legal standards as outlined by the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death in its investigation into the suspicious deaths.”
In at least two cases, authorities did not conduct an autopsy, contrary to the international standard, in line with widely accepted medical practice, that autopsies should be carried out in almost all cases of potentially unlawful death.
Investigations into deaths in custody also appear to be slow. Salvadoran authorities say they are investigating these deaths, but as of mid-November, all such investigations appeared to be at an “initial phase.” Human Rights Watch formally asked the Attorney General’s Office for information regarding these investigations, but the office responded that information on complaints of alleged human rights violations by security forces had been “classified” for two years.
Saul Rivas (pseudonym), a 46-year-old construction worker, was detained on April 21 in San Salvador.
The police raided Rivas’ home on April 21 without showing a search warrant. They told the family he was suspected of “unlawful association.” A relative went to a police station where officials had taken Rivas and told the officer that Rivas had diabetes and required daily medication. “We are not giving any [medication] right now,” the officer replied, saying that he should try again at the “El Penalito” police station, where they said Rivas would be transferred the next day.
On April 22, relatives went to “El Penalito,” but officers said they were not “receiving medication” either. They asked a prison guard at the gatehouse if Rivas was there. The guard said he “was not authorized to provide information” but assured them that he would receive any medication he needed.
On May 7, employees from a mortuary arrived at Rivas’ home, informing his family that he had died. According to the Institute of Legal Medicine, Rivas died from “pulmonary edema.” Authorities conducted an autopsy but had not provided a copy of the report to relatives at time of writing.
Police arrested José Luis Moreno Terán, 18, on April 2 in Atiquizaya, Ahuachapán.
A relative told Human Rights Watch that the family learned about Terán’s arrest after seeing a tweet by the police showing a picture of him. The tweet indicated that Terán had been arrested in “flagrant” commission of a crime and would “face more than 30 years in prison for “unlawful association” and ‘extortion.’”
Authorities held Terán for three days at a police station in Atiquizaya. He was then moved to the Izalco prison, where he was held incommunicado.
On June 3, workers from a mortuary went to Terán’s house and informed his family that he had died. A report by the Institute of Legal Medicine says he died due to “pulmonary edema.” But photographs of his body show he had multiple bruises on his torso and arms. The injuries are not visible in the photograph published by the police during his arrest, which suggests they were caused during detention. As mentioned above, forensic experts who received the photos concluded that his body “present[ed] multiple lesions that evidence trauma that could have been caused by torture or ill-treatment that might have contributed to their deaths while in custody.”
Authorities conducted an autopsy but had not provided a copy of the report to relatives at time of writing.
Romeo Mauricio Posada, a 57-year-old agricultural worker, was arrested on April 5 in Guatajiagua, Morazán state. A family member who was present during the detention said police officers did not show an arrest warrant.
“We are following orders from the president,” an officer responded when she asked in the police station why Posada had been detained. On April 8, he was transferred to Izalco prison, where he was held incommunicado.
On May 16, employees from a funeral home went to Posada’s home and told a family member that he had died. According to the Institute of Legal Medicine, Posada died from “cerebral edema.” Authorities conducted an autopsy but had not provided a copy to the family at time of writing.
Police arrested Rafael López Castellón, a 53-year-old mill worker, on April 8 in Jucuapa, Usulután state.
A relative who witnessed the arrest said that police did not show an arrest warrant or explain the reasons for his arrest. When a relative asked why he was being detained, an agent threatened to detain him as well.
After two days in a police station in Usulután, López Castellón was moved to the Mariona prison. On April 21, López Castellón was taken to a hearing where he was charged with belonging to a “terrorist organization.” On May 31, a relative went to Mariona to leave medicine for López Castellón, who the relative says suffered from diabetes and a heart condition. Prison guards received it.
On August 8, the relative went to the Public Defender’s Office to request López Castellón’s criminal records. A staff member told him she could not provide the records because López Castellón was dead.
The following day, a family member went to the Institute of Legal Medicine where authorities showed him photographs of López Castellón’s torso and head, so he could recognize him. They said López Castellón had died of a “cardiomyopathy,” a heart disease. The authorities did not conduct an autopsy, his relatives said, because they said he died from an underlying heart condition.
López Castellón had been transferred to the Zacamil hospital on May 27. Four days later, his relatives left him medicine in the Mariona prison, but prison authorities did not inform the family about the transfer. The Institute of Legal Medicine told a relative he was buried in a mass grave, without the family’s knowledge or consent. In mid-September, his family was able to exhumate his body and bury him in a cemetery in their municipality.
Abusive Criminal Proceedings
Authorities repeatedly infringed due process guarantees established under international law, violating detainees’ human rights, and making it difficult, if not impossible, for detainees to adequately defend themselves during criminal proceedings.
These violations have been taking place in a context in which there are few protections for judicial and prosecutorial independence from the executive branch.
Some due process protections established under the Salvadoran constitution have been suspended during the state of emergency, including the right to be informed about the reason of arrest, to remain silent, and to legal representation, and the requirement that all people who are detained be taken before a judge within 72 hours.
As of mid-October, over 43,000 people have been arrested for “unlawful association” and over 7,000 for belonging to a “terrorist group.” Under Salvadoran law, including recent reforms passed in the early days of the state of emergency, these crimes carry a range of legal consequences that run counter to international human rights law. For example:
El Salvador’s law establishes that hearings concerning crimes related to “unlawful association” or “terrorism” should, as a general rule, be conducted virtually. Making virtual hearings the rule rather than the exception is inconsistent with the right to be present at one’s trial, does not afford a full opportunity to challenge the validity of pretrial detention, and is not an adequate safeguard for the right to security of person and the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment. These concerns are heightened in mass hearings. In many cases documented by Human Rights Watch and Cristosal, detainees participated in the hearings virtually, although prosecutors, judges, and the defendants’ lawyers were present physically in the court.
Courts sent over 51,000 detainees to pretrial detention, seemingly applying a recent amendment to the criminal code that expanded mandatory pretrial detention to include all crimes committed by members of terrorist groups, gangs, and other criminal organizations. As explained above, this provision is inconsistent with international human rights standards requiring an individualized determination establishing that pretrial detention is necessary and proportionate for purposes such as preventing flight, interference with evidence, or the recurrence of crime.
At the same time, the mass arrests notably increased the workload of judges, prosecutors and lawyers, including from human rights groups who provided pro bono representation to victims. As a point of comparison, the number of cases handled by public defenders increased from 9,000 between early January and late-March to over 55,000 between late-March, when the state of emergency was passed, and July.
Detainees’ lawyers said that in many cases they were notified of the hearings the same day, or the day before they took place, which undermined their capacity to provide an adequate defense, including to obtain relevant documents such as medical records or work references.
In the limited number of cases in which relatives had information about their family member’s hearings, they say that detainees were normally taken to a judge within 15 days after their arrest, the maximum period allowed under the Salvadoran constitution when a state of emergency has been declared.
Thousands were held incommunicado for weeks or months or were only allowed to see their lawyer for a few minutes before their hearings. Authorities have in many cases prohibited prison visits, including of the defendant’s lawyers, allegedly because “they were conducting raids in prisons” or due to “increased Covid-19 cases.” They also denied detainees the right to make phone calls.
Most detainees had public defenders who faced an inmense workload and often failed to provide an adequate defense. The Public Defender’s Office hired 40 additional lawyers after the beginning of the state of emergency, but as of October, there were 287 public defenders in El Salvador, who were representing an average of 194 cases each.
Additionally, several relatives of detainees said that public defenders failed to provide them with sufficient information on their relative’s case, or to inform them in a timely manner of the evidence required from them.
Private attorneys also faced daunting challenges to provide an adequate defense. Some said that their access to criminal files had been restricted and that they were denied access to critically important information, such as the court file number of their case.
Initial hearings—where, under El Salvador’s law, judges review the lawfulness of the arrest, decide on charges and rule on whether the detainee is sent to pretrial detention— were conducted in groups and at times with up to 500 people in each, severely curtailing the opportunity to present a defense and raising other serious due process concerns. Public defenders said that, in some hearings, authorities gave public defenders “three or four minutes” to present their case for “400 or 500” detainees.
As of October, none of the over 58,000 people detained during the state of emergency appeared to have been taken to trial.
In over 17,000 cases, public defenders requested a “special review hearing” to consider alternative measures to imprisonment for detainees. Human Rights Watch and Cristosal documented four cases in which courts granted the release on bail but the penitentiary authorities did not release the detainees.
The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court has addressed only a handful of the habeas corpus requests filed by lawyers representing detainees. As of November 29, Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, a human rights organization, had filed 611 habeas corpus requests; the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court had only ruled on five.
Lack of Accountability for Human Rights Violations
Human Rights Watch and Cristosal have not been able to identify any meaningful investigations into allegations of human rights violations committed during the state of emergency.
On July 22, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the Attorney General’s Office requesting information on such investigations. But the Attorney General’s Office responded that the information was “classified.”
On July 29, El Salvador’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva sent a communication to several UN Experts indicating that “the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office has not learned about the existence or lack of existence of judicial or administrative investigations about arbitrary arrests, torture, or other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment against people accused of crimes who remain under custody.”
On November 18, 2022, an official in the Attorney General’s Office told the UN Committee Against Torture that the office had opened 90 investigations into deaths in custody. She said that there was “no evidence” that the deaths had been caused by a “disproportionate use of force by police, military or prison personnel.” She did not report any concrete progress in these 90 investigations, nor did she mention whether the office had opened investigations into other cases of possible human rights violations committed during the state of emergency.
The Attorney General’s Office, which periodically tweets about arrests and other progress in criminal investigations, has not published any information on its social media accounts about investigations into police or army officers allegedly responsible for abuses committed during the state of emergency.
Salvadoran law requires the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office to conduct non-judicial investigations into allegations of human rights violations to “promote” the end of violations and ensure victims’ rights, as well as to provide recommendations to authorities on reforms to practices or laws that open the door to abuses.
However, the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office has so far failed to carry out serious investigations into abuses committed during the state of emergency. As of June, the Office had opened 24 files grouping over 700 allegations of abuses committed during the state of emergency. Although Salvadoran law requires that investigations be concluded within eight days, no investigation into alleged abuses committed during the state of emergency had been finished as of early June.
This report was researched by staff members of Cristosal and Human Rights Watch.
It was written by Juan Pappier, acting associate director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas Division, and by a Human Rights Watch staff member whose name is withheld for security reasons.
The following Cristosal staff members reviewed the report: Noah Bullock, executive director; Abraham Abrego, director for strategic litigation; Rina Montti, director for human rights research; and Daniel Nieto, human rights researcher.
The report was also reviewed by the following Human Rights Watch staff members: Juanita Goebertus, Americas director; Tamara Taraciuk Broner, Americas deputy director; Kyle Knight, senior health and human rights researcher; Matt McConnell, economic justice and rights researcher; Margaret Wurth, senior children’s rights researcher; Letta Tayler, associate director, Crisis and Conflict Division; Regina Tamés, deputy director, Women’s Rights Division; Alison Leal Parker, managing director, US Program; Claudio Francavilla, senior EU advocate; Carlos Ríos-Espinosa, senior researcher, Disability Rights Division; Kate Waine, Washington advocacy coordinator; Floriane Borel, senior United Nations advocacy coordinator. María McFarland Sánchez-Moreno and Michael Bochenek García provided Human Rights Watch’s program and legal review, respectively.
Americas Division associates Camilo Moraga-Lewy, Delphine Starr, and Johan Romero contributed to the report production. The report was prepared for publication by Travis Carr, publications officer, Fitzroy Hepkins, administrative manager, and José Martínez, senior administration coordinator. It was translated into Spanish by Gabriela Haymes.
Human Rights Watch is deeply grateful to the victims who, despite often incredibly difficult circumstances, shared their testimonies with us.
Source link : https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/12/07/we-can-arrest-anyone-we-want/widespread-human-rights-violations-under-el
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Publish date : 2022-12-07 03:00:00
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