The body of Elvin Josué Sánchez Rivera, 21, was handed over to the family, to whom the authorities notified that he had died of COVID-19 while he was detained in a penal center in El Salvador, amid the emergency regime that prevails since the end of March. Later, they changed the version to “sudden death” and requested that the coffin not be opened.
The family did not obey the instruction, opened the coffin, checked the body and photographed in detail. He had bruises from blows to the back.
He was a farmer, worked in agriculture and played the saxophone. According to his family and acquaintances, he had no connection with crime structures. Elvin’s story is repeated in at least most of the 53 cases of people who – according to social organizations that came to Washington DC last week to present their case – have died under the state of emergency ordered by President Nayib Bukele to deal with gangs.
In many cases, he tells the voice of america The researcher of the Cristosal organization, Zaira Navas, does not match the cause of death recorded in the hospital reports with the justification presented in the official report, “and the most serious thing” -indicates this lawyer- is that no autopsies have been carried out, that by law they should be done given the circumstances of the deaths.
In other cases, the beatings have been evident from the moment of capture, as relatives of other fatal victims have recounted. One of them was Walter Vladimir Sandoval Peñate, 32 years old, who was beaten by members of the National Civil Police (PNC) at the time of his capture. The young man refused to accept that he belonged to gangs, nor did his family associate him with structures. criminals. He was caught and beaten while intoxicated.
Days after the capture, the body arrived at the relatives. The evident blows to the face and other parts of the body have made them wonder about the abuse that Walter may have suffered while he was being moved between prisons.
In other cases, human rights organizations have compiled information on people who have died in the custody of the authorities caused in part by suffering from illnesses that required medical attention, and that even with the offer of relatives to take medicines to the prisons where they are held , it has not been possible to hand them over due to the continued transfer of detainees, which makes it difficult for relatives to locate them.
That apparently happened to the evangelical pastor and director of a school in the city of Santa Tecla, Mario David Arias Rivera, 44 years old and who would have received a beating, but had no medicine for his diabetic condition and also ended up dead.
Some media outlets in the country have followed up on the cases and tried to locate the photographs in the family albums of those Salvadorans who today have more than fifty fatalities.
According to the Salvadoran government, these cases are part of a “minimum margin of error” in the captures.
The representative of the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) in Washington DC, and in charge of the El Salvador office, Sonia Rubio, comments to the VOA that the Salvadoran State cannot evade responsibility for what is happening, given that when a person is detained, it is the responsibility of the country’s authorities to guarantee human rights, beyond detention.
“There are strong indications that it is presumed that some of these [personas muertas] they may have been provoked either by excessive force by police and military officers, or guards, or even by other detainees. But as we know when a person is detained or deprived of liberty, it is the State that must fully guarantee all other rights, such as life, personal integrity and the right to health”, explains the expert.
What do international organizations think about this situation?
On June 23, human rights organizations both inside and outside the country presented a detailed investigation before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on the “outrages carried out by the authorities” of El Salvador in the framework of the State of exception prevailing in the country.
At the hearing, they listed the fatalities to date and the type of deaths that have been recorded, while presenting testimonies from former detainees who recount the mechanisms of “torture” to which they were subjected to accept charges against them and the conditions of detention. extreme overcrowding inside the cells.
The testimony compiled by Amnesty International from a student -under identity protection- described to the Commission that he shared a cell and hardship with some 70 people “most of them workers, students like him or young people who have nothing to do with gangs” and the structures that the government says fight with raids.
“While I was there, two people died (…) “We saw that they were going up with a stretcher… We knew they were dead because we saw the stretcher and a body covered by a sheet,” said the witness.
The Executive of Nayib Bukele rejected the invitation to participate in the hearing before the IACHR, and to have the space to explain the situation before the Commission that has the mandate to be the guarantor of the protection of fundamental rights as established by the Democratic Charter and the Convention Inter-American, both signed and ratified by El Salvador.
Both the president of the IACHR, Julissa Mantilla, and other agency commissioners expressed their concern. Commissioner Joel Hernández summed up the matter.
“The absence of the State in this hearing is extremely worrying, but I also see it as very indicative of a gradual closure of El Salvador to international scrutiny, which we very much regret, the Commission is not the only one that has been highlighting its concern regarding the deterioration of democratic institutions in El Salvador, several international organizations and other countries have joined these concerns and it seems that today these expressions of concern are not taken into account, on the contrary there is a confrontation”, said the Commissioner.
This June 29, President Bukele criticized human rights defenders, announcing a resurgence of the offensive against Marasfor the murder of 3 police officers, who allegedly died at the hands of gang members.
“I bet you neither [Juan] Pappier, neither [José Miguel] Vivanco nor Human Rights Watchnor any of those scoundrels are going to say anything for the lives of our heroes or for their relatives who are now abandoned, “said Bukele.
The acting director of HRW, Tamara Taraciuk Broner, responded to the president that the organization “repudiates” the killings of police officers as well as those committed by gangs, and that the current measures “must be sustainable, effective and respectful of fundamental rights.” .
The experience in other countries such as Nicaragua and Venezuela, he added, shows that “when the rule of law is dismantled”, no individual is safe from being violated by the State.
In the Salvadoran context, it is aggravated, he said, because citizens are exposed “both to the brutality of the gangs and to the excesses of authority,” and that those who are victims of the gangs today “may end up touring detention centers tomorrow.” in search of family members arbitrarily detained by the police”.
Is there indifference among Salvadorans to protest “abuses”?
Lawyer and independent social analyst Darío Cardona tells the VOA that at the moment in El Salvador the explanations about what is happening and the lack of reaction of the citizens escape an explanation of a legal nature, rather it is circumscribed to a sociological factor.
From civil society organizations they clarify that: -given the difficulty for families to file complaints- and if they do, but anonymously, it also indicates that there is a fear in poor communities of being the focus of greater reprisals.
Zaira Navas, from Cristosal, comments that in many cases they have documented that “if the family publicly complains or denounces, then more members of the family group arrive”, a pattern that in her opinion would be indicating an “extreme repression”.
Darío Cardona adds that the actions launched by the government are indicators of measures that do not have a vocation for justice. He said that “this would associate him more with the psychopathy of the president of the republic,” who by dint of the government propaganda apparatus “has turned El Salvador into an irascible, furious mass, thirsty for revenge that is not willing to make an effort minimum empathy with the innocent victims who have nothing to do with the gang problem and who are paying the costs,” whether as fatalities or arbitrarily detained.
The main newspapers in the country and independent media have tried to document the cases, both of the deceased and of families desperately looking for their detainees, with proof that they are not linked to gangs.
A forensic medicine expert told The printing press that with the type of damage, such as blows and other signs with which the detainees have arrived on the hospital emergency stretcher to die, I would instruct the medical personnel to make a separate report.
“From my point of view, with that cause of death, in that young man, the doctor should have notified the Attorney General’s Office, and the Attorney General’s Office should have requested the Institute of Legal Medicine, the recognition of the corpse,” explained the professional, quoted by LPG, explaining how the situation should be addressed.
What is the appearance of a gang member?
The experts interviewed by the voice of america agree on the physical description of what a gang member looks like. The State has said that it will put its estimate of around 70,000 in jail. To date, a little more than 42,000 people have been captured and presented in collective hearings with special judges.
Sonia Rubio, from DPLF, circumscribes the fabricated image of the gang member “as the young man with certain physical characteristics, dark skin” that corresponds to a large part of the country’s poor population.
Zaira Navas adds that the massive raids have also taken young people who have artistic tattoos to prison cells and prisons “we do not know with what criteria the police and the armed forces determine that they are from gangs,” she explains.
Lawyer Darío Cardona also points out that the profile of Salvadorans sought by the authorities within the exceptional regime corresponds to that of a large majority that lives in peripheral areas and with low resources.
Hence, it is not surprising that the deaths in State custody and detained by the authorities come from these areas of poverty, which in addition makes it difficult for the families to be heard, by their own compatriots and less so by the authorities.
The voice of america channeled through the press unit of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) of El Salvador to find out if the Public Ministry has open investigations to clarify the deaths and other treatment cases denounced by human rights organizations, and until the closure of this note, there was no response.
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