HRW says it has confirmed human rights violations in El Salvador

The international organization Human Rights Watch assured on Friday that it has official data on massive violations of due process, extreme overcrowding in prisons and deaths of people in the custody of the authorities during the validity of the emergency regime in El Salvador.

In a press release, Human Rights Watch said that a reliable source – whom it did not identify – indicated that the database belongs to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security and that to assess the authenticity it compared that information with other sources, including cases documented by local organizations or reported in the media, and identified 300 matches.

The database lists the names of the people prosecuted between March and the end of August 2022, the crimes they are accused of, the prisons where they were sent, and the number of people who were ordered provisional detention.

Human Rights Watch said the information indicates that thousands of people, “including hundreds of children, have been detained and prosecuted for broadly defined crimes that violate basic guarantees of due process and undermine the prospects for justice for victims of gang violence.”

The Salvadoran Congress, with an official majority, approved the state of emergency for the first time on March 27 of last year, a day after 62 homicides were registered in the same day, a level of violence that was not seen in the country in long, attributed to gangs.

The state of exception limits freedom of association and suspends the right of a person to be duly informed of their rights and grounds for arrest, as well as the assistance of a lawyer.

According to the latest official figure, 61,000 people have been detained since the state of emergency came into force.

When asked by The Associated Press, the presidential house indicated that it had not yet seen the report and that at the moment it had no comment on it.

Human Rights Watch said the leaked information reveals that Salvadoran authorities have subjected detainees to extremely overcrowded detention centers and have done little to ensure access to justice.

“This database makes it possible to corroborate serious human rights violations committed during the emergency regime,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, the organization’s acting director for the Americas.

Human Rights Watch has asked President Nayib Bukele and Congress to end the state of emergency, but the president has justified the measure by claiming that it is a “tool to deal with “terrorists.”

Meanwhile, Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro recently stated that no international organization is going to tell El Salvador how to solve its problems and maintained that the numbers show that the strategy has been successful.

According to official figures, the country closed 2022 with a record of 495 homicides, the lowest number in recent decades. But this does not include at least 120 homicides of alleged gang members killed in alleged clashes with security forces.

In 2015, the Central American country -considered then one of the most violent countries in the world- registered 6,656 homicides, a rate of 106 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

So far this year, 10 homicides have been reported, including that of an alleged gang member who died in an exchange of fire with authorities.

In addition to the state of emergency, Congress also reformed the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure to make it a crime to be part of a gang, which can be punished with a sentence of 20 years in prison. The ringleaders can receive sentences of 40 to 45 years.

In crimes related to organized crime, which includes gangs, 20 years in prison are applied to adolescents over 16 years of age and up to 10 years to those over 12.

Gangs, with a presence in populous communities and neighborhoods throughout the country, are involved in drug trafficking and organized crime. They extort merchants and transport companies and kill those who refuse to pay, according to authorities.

In 2012, the United States included the Mara Salvatrucha gang on a list of international organizations and three years later, the Supreme Court of El Salvador declared that it was a terrorist group along with the Barrio 18 gang.

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