Deaths in prisons in El Salvador are questioned

El Salvador celebrates its fourth consecutive month under the emergency regime and human rights activists and criminology specialists consider that the tool should be reconsidered to deal with complaints of arbitrary arrests and deaths of detainees in this judicial framework.

Anthropologist Marvín Aguilar says the exceptional measures have deepened the imprisonment processes to try those who have committed serious crimes, but the government needs to clarify the cases of 52 detainees who, according to human rights organizations, died in state custody in the prisons of the country.

Aguilar alleges that very little is known about these people and among them there were perhaps “innocent people” “the death penalty was applied without being a gang member”

The newspaper La Prensa Gráfica published the account of a person who was detained during the emergency regime and who was in jail for 30 days in which, according to what he said, he was subjected to inhuman treatment. He said he saw prison guards beat up inmates and force them to reveal details of the gang’s actions.

IACHR receives information on the death of 52 detainees

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, IACHR, received in a thematic hearing, in which the Salvadoran state did not participate, information on 52 deaths of detainees of the emergency regime, but the specialist in criminology Misael Rivas considers that the requests should have gone to the national instances.

“The first thing that has to be done in a state, where I respect the law and jurisdiction, is that I go with my complaint before the national institutions. When it goes bankrupt that you don’t work in the national institution, it’s that they give me that tacit permission and I make the complaint,” said Rivas.

The information on the deaths of inmates in the country’s prisons during the emergency regime is obtained only through the families of the deceased, since the General Directorate of Penal Centers has not provided details in this regard.

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