The non-governmental organization Cristosal reported on Monday that at least 153 people detained in El Salvador died in state custody. during the exception regime decreed by Congress on March 27, 2022.
Of the 153 victims, four are women and the rest are men. According to the Cristosal report, none of the deceased was found guilty of the crime that was attributed to them when they were arrested. Of the total number of deaths, 139 occurred in the first year of the emergency regime.
He report of the organization that defends human rights also reveals that the deaths of the detainees were the result of torture and serious and systematic injuries. Almost half of the deceased were victims of violent deaths.
It delves into the practices of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment that have been widely inflicted on thousands of people detained under the emergency regime.
A part of these deaths were caused by pathologies that show deliberate negligence in the provision of medical assistance, medicines and food, registering deaths due to malnutrition.
And he adds that these actions clearly reveal a punitive policy carried out by the custodians and officials of the prison administration and affirms that “it is evident that such actions require the authorization and support of the highest-level authorities in the field of security.”
So far there is no official report of the people who died in prisons.
The state of emergency approved by the unicameral Congress suspends several constitutional rights, including the right of a person to be duly informed of their rights and the reasons for their detention, as well as the right to have the assistance of a lawyer.
In addition, it extends detention from 72 hours to 15 days and allows the authorities to intervene in the correspondence and cell phones of those they consider suspicious.
To obtain the information, Cristosal says that he carried out field investigations, including in common graves, collecting photographic documentation of the bodies and obituaries from the state Institute of Legal Medicine, as well as interviews with relatives, neighbors of the deceased and people who they were detained.
Cristosal exposes the case of a 24-year-old man who was engaged in fishing and died in an ambulance before entering the Zacamil National Hospital, in the Salvadoran capital. His body had a perforation that went through one of his shoulders and lacerations on his knees, but they assure that the obituary from the Institute of Legal Medicine determined that he died as a result of “pulmonary edema.”
The report highlights that the testimonial evidence collected allows them to verify evidence of collective torture practices at the time of entering prison facilities. Among these are injuries inflicted with macanas (sticks to beat) by the guards, as well as torture by position, such as forcing detainees to kneel on the gravel until they bleed.
Cristosal called on the Salvadoran State to clarify the conditions of those detained in jails, respect due process, release innocent people, answer for deaths in their custody, provide all the necessary information to their family, and end a time with these practices covered by a regime of exception that, according to complaints, is unconstitutional.
Official figures register more than 68,000 alleged gang members or collaborators captured within the framework of the emergency regime, of which more than 90% have provisional detention ordered by a judge, mainly for the crime of illegal groups. But more than 5,000 people have been released because they could not be linked to those criminal structures, according to authorities.
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and activate notifications, or follow us on social networks: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
