“The region cannot continue down the path of repressing protests, militarizing borders and public security, environmental destruction and failing to protect historically marginalized communities, such as Indigenous peoples and human rights defenders,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. “The heads of state in the Americas must change course and seek solutions to create a freer and safer continent, with full respect for the human rights of all.”

Amnesty International’s concerns include the excessive use of force to suppress social protests, seen in several countries in the region and most recently in Peru. States in the Americas must ensure that individuals can exercise their right to peaceful protest and that any use of force by the security forces when policing demonstrations is necessary, legitimate and strictly proportionate. The organization also calls on states to end arbitrary detentions, unlawful killings, torture and other ill-treatment, which are frequently committed in much of the region.

Another issue that must be urgently addressed by states in the region is that of human mobility and the need for international protection, specifically in the case of people fleeing human rights crises in countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. It is alarming how restrictive and even inhumane migration policies, such as those of the USA, Mexico, Peru and Chile, have endangered people in need of international protection, rather than seeking cooperation to address the humanitarian crisis at various borders across the continent.

The region cannot continue down the path of repressing protests, militarizing borders and public security, environmental destruction and failing to protect historically marginalized communities, such as Indigenous peoples and human rights defenders 

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Amnesty International also believes that states must find alternatives to address public security crises other than militarization, which has become the norm in several countries in the region. The use of the armed forces for public security tasks has been intensified in countries such as Mexico and Ecuador, which has created contexts that facilitate grave human rights violations without addressing the root causes of criminal violence.

States must take urgent action to protect human rights defenders; the Americas remains the most dangerous region for human rights defenders. According to Front Line Defenders, Colombia was the world’s deadliest country for defenders in 2022, with at least 186 killings, followed by Mexico (45), Brazil (26) and Honduras (17).

The climate crisis is another danger that threatens the region. Although the impacts of climate change on rural and historically marginalized communities are becoming increasingly clear, states’ efforts have been insufficient and have failed to address dependence on fossil fuels, the main factor behind the crisis.

Similarly, states have not done enough to guarantee the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Over the past year, Amnesty International has documented cases of killings of Indigenous leaders in countries including Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico in the context of land-related conflicts. Meanwhile, several states have proceeded with or granted concessions to national and multinational companies to implement extractive, agricultural and infrastructure projects without the free, prior and informed consent of the affected Indigenous peoples.

Violence and discrimination against women, girls and LGBTI people is another historical problem that urgently needs a concerted response. States in the region continue to fail to adequately address the very high levels of gender-based violence, including feminicides, and several states have taken measures that endanger people’s sexual and reproductive rights.

Finally, the General Assembly is due to elect four people to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Faced with the withdrawal of nominations from four countries, Amnesty International urges states in the Americas to elect people with the highest credentials, in line with the principles of suitability, impartiality, independence and recognized competence in the field of human rights, and to ensure that nominations and the withdrawal of nominations is firmly based on the inter-American legal framework.

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This policy has resulted in more than 66,000 detentions, most of them arbitrary; ill-treatment and torture; flagrant violations of due process; enforced disappearances; and the deaths in state custody of at least 132 people who at the time of their deaths had not been found guilty of any crime. Key to the commission of these human rights violations has been the coordination and collusion of the three branches of government; the putting in place of a legal framework contrary to international human rights standards, specifically with regard to criminal proceedings; and the failure to adopt measures to prevent systematic human rights violations under a state of emergency.

“The international community is alert to the grave human rights consequences of the state of emergency in El Salvador. The compliance of the institutions responsible for ensuring and administering justice in the country has led to the criminal justice system being weaponized to punish people, the majority of whom are from historically marginalized areas, when there is no evidence that they have committed a crime,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

“The deaths of 132 people in state custody, arbitrary detention, mass criminal prosecutions and the indiscriminate imprisonment of tens of thousands of people are incompatible with an effective, fair and lasting public security strategy. The systematic violation of human rights and the dismantling of the rule of law are not the answer to the problems facing the country. On the contrary, they set very dangerous precedents.”

The state of emergency was decreed on 27 March 2022 after a spike in homicides in which 87 people died, the result of the breakdown of a supposed pact between Nayib Bukele’s government and criminal structures to reduce the number of homicides in exchange for certain benefits for gang leaders.

Amnesty International believes the grave human rights violations being committed under the state of emergency are systematic in nature due to the widespread and sustained manner in which they are occurring; the level of state organization and planning involving the convergence of the three branches of the state; the impunity and lack of accountability; the lack of transparency and access to information; and the widespread criminalization of poverty, as an aspect of discrimination.

The systematic violation of human rights and the dismantling of the rule of law are not the answer to the problems facing the country. On the contrary, they set very dangerous precedents.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director, Amnesty International

The systematic nature of human rights violations could lead Salvadoran state officials to bear individual international criminal responsibility for failing to comply with their obligations to prevent and punish such acts

Criminal prosecution and indiscriminate imprisonment

For more than a year, procedural safeguards, such as the presumption of innocence and the right to a defence, have been suspended, which has allowed the arbitrary detention and imprisonment of more than 66,000 people in record time. Amnesty International has documented around 50 cases in which it has been able to identify a pattern of large-scale arbitrary detention and imprisonment.

Patterns identified include detention based on alleged anonymous accusations or having tattoos or a previous criminal record of any kind. The organization has also documented the holding of expedited hearings – mostly virtual – where a judge, whose identity is withheld, can simultaneously try up to 500 people with virtually no evidence implicating them in the commission of an offence. In addition, people lack an effective defence and are barely aware of the prosecution’s charges.

Torture and arbitrary deaths in state custody

As of the end of March 2023, the number of people who had died in state custody had risen to 132. However, Salvadoran human rights organizations believe that there is under-reporting because of reported cases of exhumations of victims from mass graves after families were finally able to learn of the deaths of individuals who had died months earlier.

Amnesty International has documented at least 10 cases of deaths in state custody and verified that the main causes include torture and cruel and degrading treatment by police officers and guards, as well as lack of access to health services. Some people released on probation reported witnessing guards and police beating prisoners to death, when seeking to extract a “confession” that they were part of a gang structure or when inflicting a supposed punishment.

The organization found that, in some cases, the Forensic Medicine Institute and hospitals where the victims were treated prior to their deaths issued certificates giving the main causes of death as factors such as: “mechanical asphyxiation”, “multiple unidentified traumas” and “beatings”. To date, none of the relatives of those who died have been notified of any investigation to clarify the circumstances of the deaths of their relatives.

Amnesty International documented the case of the enforced disappearance and deprivation of life of a 45-year-old mentally disabled man who was apprehended at his home in mid-April 2022. His family said that between April and June of last year, they delivered to the prison the hygiene kit and food that the prison authorities request for detainees. In July, prison officials informed them that their relative was no longer held in those facilities but gave no details of his whereabouts. During the next two and a half months, the family visited various prisons and hospitals trying to locate him, requesting the support of the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsperson and the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, who refused to provide assistance.

In mid-September, they received a phone call from an individual who told them he had shared a cell with their relative. He advised them to go to the Forensic Medicine Institute because he believed that their relative had died as a result of beatings by guards when he entered the prison.

“He told us: ‘Your relative vomited blood through his mouth and nose. I think he died, because they took him to the hospital and they never brought him back,’” the family said.

Through the Forensic Medicine Institute, the family was able to confirm that their relative had died 36 days after de was apprehended and that in early July he had been buried in a mass grave. In mid-October they managed to have his remains exhumed. To date, no state official has contacted the family to inform them of an investigation into his death.

“We see with alarm how overcrowding and torture continue to claim the lives of innocent people, with the complicity of all the institutions that are supposed to uphold their rights. The dehumanization that thousands of unjustly imprisoned people are suffering is intolerable and must be urgently addressed by international human rights protection mechanisms,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

Cruel and inhuman treatment – prison overcrowding

Among the package of legal reforms that accompanied the imposition of the state of emergency, one of the most notable is the amendment to the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code allowing the indiscriminate use of pretrial detention by the those responsible for the administration of justice. This has resulted not only in a violation of the right to freedom (since this type of detention should be used in very limited circumstances) and the right to be tried or released within a reasonable time, but has also caused a serious overcrowding problem in prisons. Currently, El Salvador has a prison population of more than 100,000, making it the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 1.5% of its population in prison.

People arbitrarily detained and released after being held in pretrial detention for several months whom Amnesty International was able to interview described the humanitarian crisis to which the prison population is subjected. Conditions include extreme overcrowding in cells holding more than 100 people, as well as the lack of sanitation and access to basic services such as water, adequate food, medicines and medical care. They said these conditions facilitated people contracting and spreading diseases and, at their most extreme, resulted in deaths from lack of timely medical care.

He told us: ‘Your relative vomited blood through his mouth and nose. I think he died, because they took him to the hospital and they never brought him back.

The family of a detainee

In addition, they reported being subjected to verbal and physical abuse by the police and prison guards; being prevented from all communication with their families; the use of pepper spray inside cells; the rationing of food and water and access to toilets and showers; and denial of access to the open air.

State organization and planning

The policy of mass incarceration is a product of state planning where the three arms of the state converge, each exercising a key function within the state machinery and making possible the systematic, massive and sustained violation of the human rights of the Salvadoran population.

On the one hand, the Executive, through the police, the armed forces and the Ministry of Security, has designed and implemented a security strategy based on the excessive use of force, indiscriminate arbitrary detention and the practice of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment including torture.

For its part, the Legislature has for a year continued to approve and extend the period that the state of emergency, a measure whose nature is temporary and extraordinary, remains in force. In addition, it has supported a series of legal amendments that contravene international human rights standards ratified by the country.

Finally, the Judiciary is not acting independently, is violating the right to due process and is failing to combat impunity for the violations committed. The courts and auxiliary entities as well as those attached to the Public Prosecutor’s Office are flagrantly failing in their duties in criminal proceedings.

Rampant impunity

The negligence and wilful misconduct of the institutions responsible for ensuring respect for and guarantees of human rights and for prosecuting and punishing crimes committed by officials has led to a high level of impunity for the human rights violations that security officials and those responsible for the administration of justice are committing by their actions or omissions under the state of emergency.

The withholding of information and obstacles to accessing it and the failure to take measures to clarify human rights violations and the circumstances in which they occurred, and to identify those responsible, create the conditions that allow impunity to prevail and facilitate the perpetuation and escalation of these patterns of abuse.

“In none of the 50 cases we have documented has it been possible to verify that there were investigation processes regarding the conduct of public officials. The fact that there are widespread human rights violations and virtually no ongoing criminal proceedings evidences the control exercised from the highest level so that all state powers obey this policy of indiscriminate imprisonment,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

Criminalization of people living in poverty and collateral impact

The state of emergency includes security measures that have a disproportionate impact on people living in poverty. These de facto measures criminalize people living in the most impoverished areas who have historically suffered the scourge of gangs.

Thousands of families have been seriously affected economically because the main breadwinner has been apprehended and because of the additional expenses they have to incur to try to prove their relatives’ innocence, to exercise the right of defence during criminal proceedings and to try to guarantee the well-being and health of their relatives held in prisons.

Civil society organizations have reported an increased incidence in affected families of child labour and of minors dropping out of school; increased forced displacement; an increase in cases of family fragmentation; and an increased care burden on women.

Amnesty International again urges President Bukele’s government and other state authorities to take the necessary steps to withdraw the state of emergency; re-establish suspended rights; initiate effective, autonomous and independent investigations into the dramatic consequences of this measure; and ensure reparation measures for victims.

“Given the systematic nature of grave human rights violations, we call on international protection mechanisms to intervene urgently to avoid a major crisis in El Salvador. The Salvadoran state must know with certainty that the international community will not tolerate these kinds of policies,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

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• The Americas remains the region with most fatalities from Covid, with more than 2.9 million confirmed deaths.

• The United States had more than 102 million confirmed cases and 1,111,000 deaths from Covid as of 14 March 2023, more than any other country on earth. Brazil had the world’s second highest death toll, with more than 699,000 fatalities.

• Peru still has the highest fatality rate in the world from Covid, with 6,481 confirmed deaths per million inhabitants.

• Authorities in El Salvador have detained more than 65,000 people since declaring a state of emergency in March 2022. With nearly 2% of the adult population behind bars, El Salvador has the world’s highest incarceration rate.

• As of last December, Nicaraguan authorities had revoked the legal status of at least 3,144 organizations and closed at least 12 universities. In February 2023 the government forcibly exiled 222 people, and stripped more than 300 of their nationality, including prominent human rights defenders, writers and journalists.

• At least 67 people have died since widespread protests began across Peru in December, including at least 49 deaths from state repression.

• Mexico suffered its deadliest ever year for journalists, with CPJ recording at least 13 killings. Only Ukraine recorded more killings of journalists (15) in 2022, while Haiti was the next deadliest country with seven killings.

• Turks and Caicos Islands recorded the highest murder rate in Latin America and the Caribbean last year (77.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants), followed by Jamaica (52.9), St. Lucia (42.3) and Venezuela (40.4).

• The Americas accounted for 273 of 327 trans and gender-diverse people reported murdered worldwide between 1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022. Brazil recorded more killings (96) than any other country on earth, followed by Mexico (56), the United States (51) and Colombia (28).

• Mexico recorded 3,754 killings of women in 2022, of which 947 were investigated as feminicides.

• The number of people officially missing in Mexico surpassed 100,000 last year. As of 13 March 2023, the total stood at over 112,000.

• The US Supreme Court overturned a long-standing constitutional guarantee of abortion access last June, threatening critical rights, including the right to life, security and non-discrimination for millions of women, girls, and others. By the end of 2022, several US states had passed laws to ban or curtail access to abortion.

• US federal courts upheld the Migrant Protection Protocols and Title 42 of the US Code in 2022, resulting in irreparable harm to tens of thousands of asylum seekers who were expelled to danger in Mexico.

• Between September 2021 and May 2022, the USA expelled more than 25,000 Haitians without due process, in violation of national and international law.

• Mexican authorities detained at least 281,149 people in overcrowded immigration detention centers last year, and deported at least 98,299 people, mostly from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied children.

• More than 7.17 million Venezuelans have left the country, mostly since 2015. Of these, over 6 million are living in other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

•     The number of migrant children crossing the dangerous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama on foot hit an all-time high, with UNICEF counting 32,488 children from January to October.

• Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon totalled more than 11,500 km² in the first 11 months of 2022, the second highest figure since 2006.

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“The development of autonomy in weapons is accelerating, and the growing application of new Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies is a deeply worrying development. These machines risk automating killing, treating it as a technical undertaking which raises human rights risks as well as humanitarian, legal and ethical concerns. Autonomous machines will make life and death decisions without empathy or compassion.

The development of autonomy in weapons is accelerating, and the growing application of new Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies is a deeply worrying development.

Agnès Callamard, Secretary General, Amnesty International

“Autonomous weapon systems lack the ability to analyse the intentions behind people’s actions. They cannot make complex decisions about distinction and proportionality, determine the necessity of an attack, refuse an illegal order, or potentially recognize an attempt to surrender, which are vital for compliance with international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

“These new weapons technologies are at risk of further endangering civilians and civilian infrastructure in conflict. Amnesty International remains concerned about the potential human rights risks that increasing autonomy in policing and security equipment poses too, such as systems which use data and algorithms to predict crime.

“It has never been more urgent to draw legal red lines around the production and use of autonomous weapons systems to ensure we maintain meaningful human control over the use of force.

“Amnesty International supports the call made by governments from Latin American and Caribbean countries today for binding international legal controls on these weapons and welcomes the decision to work in alternative forums, beyond the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) where talks have stalled, to advance this new law.”

Background

The Regional Conference on the Social and Humanitarian Impact of Autonomous Weapons in San José, Costa Rica is the first of its kind and involved regional and observer governments, representatives of the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and civil society. Amnesty International is a founding member of Stop Killer Robots, a global coalition of more than 160 organizations working to address autonomy in weapons systems.

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“The main theme of the OAS General Assembly is ‘together against inequality and discrimination’, but it is time for governments to move from words to urgent action to tackle the systemic failures that are preventing the full realization of human rights for all people in the region. This requires comprehensive action to dismantle inequality, racism, and discrimination,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

As Amnesty International has documented, the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the deep structural inequalities in the Americas that are rooted in economic, racial and gender-based factors. Many people in the region, among them women, Indigenous people, and people of African descent, suffered disproportionately in terms of rights to life, health, social protection, and the rights to an adequate standard of living and to work.

Emergency measures adopted by governments to deal with the pandemic have not been sufficient insofar as complying with their duty to eradicate discrimination and actively promote substantive equality in the enjoyment of human rights, particularly economic and social rights.

The main theme of the OAS General Assembly is ‘together against inequality and discrimination’, but it is time for governments to move from words to urgent action to tackle the systemic failures that are preventing the full realization of human rights for all people in the region.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Furthermore, the structural problems in the health systems in the Americas in terms of free and universal access and adequate budgetary and human resources mean that the healthcare systems do not comply with the requirements of accessibility, availability, quality, and cultural relevance established by the right to health.

Almost every country in the region spends less than 6% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on public health, which is the standard set by the Pan-American Health Organization to achieve universal health coverage. Governments in the Americas must, at the very least, ensure that public spending on health is at least 6% of GDP as established by PAHO. To achieve this, they must organize their tax policies, both in revenue collection and expenditure, in order to progressively seek to significantly reduce discrimination and inequality.

The American continent is the location of some of the world’s most important cross-border movements of people. The human rights crisis in Venezuela has forced more than 6.8 million people to flee the country in search of international protection. Meanwhile, the political and humanitarian crisis in Haiti has led to the movement of thousands of people who are trapped at different borders in the region. In addition, as a result of the situation of generalized violence, compounded by natural disasters associated with climate change in Central America, tens of thousands of people from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala have set off for the north of the continent.

For women refugees and migrants, their migration status is a risk factor that increases their vulnerability, exposing them to gender-based violence throughout the migration route or in the cities where they decide to stay. A recent Amnesty International investigation revealed that figures on gender-based violence against Venezuelan women refugees in Colombia and Peru have increased alarmingly in recent years. 

In the case of Haiti, Amnesty International concluded that the mass or collective expulsions of Haitian asylum seekers by US authorities under Title 42 form part of a practice of detention, exclusion, and deterrence based on systematic discrimination against people of African descent. The treatment of Haitians by US authorities constitutes race-based torture under international human rights law.

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It is no surprise then that President Nayib Bukele’s “war on gangs” has proven so popular. The authorities have imprisoned over 50,000 alleged gang members since declaring a state of emergency in response to a spate of gang-related killings in late March and the murder rate has dropped dramatically – although official figures exclude those killed by security forces and Reuters recently uncovered discrepancies over the number of bodies recovered from mass graves.

But public security should not come at the expense of massive human rights violations. As Amnesty International has documented, the authorities have dismantled judicial independence and committed torture and thousands of arbitrary detentions and violations of due process. Meanwhile, at least 73 detainees have died in state custody.

With over 1% of its population behind bars – some just for looking “suspicious” or “nervous” – El Salvador has surpassed the United States to claim the world’s highest incarceration rate. This is not the answer to a complex problem with deep-rooted socioeconomic causes.

Nor is President Bukele’s security strategy as innovative or sustainable as he would have people believe. The state of emergency, recently extended for a sixth month, bears close resemblance to the “iron fist” crackdowns of past governments in 2003 and 2004, which brought an initial drop in homicides followed by a sharp spike from 2004 to 2006.

One significant difference is that while judges swiftly released many people who were wrongly detained during past operations, the current government has seized control of the judiciary, enabling it to carry out its strategy of arbitrary arrests and mass illegal incarceration unencumbered by checks or balances.

Instead of eviscerating human rights and judicial independence, the authorities should address the longstanding inequalities that leave children from El Salvador’s most marginalized communities vulnerable to gang recruitment.

As José Miguel Rodríguez, a former MS-13 member, told me: “repression doesn’t change a gang member”. He believes young people from poor neighborhoods would be much less likely to join gangs if they had genuine educational and employment opportunities. Similarly, older gang members would be more inclined to retire if it were not almost impossible for them to find dignified employment or avoid constant police harassment.

Repression doesn’t change a gang member

José Miguel Rodríguez

Attempts to address El Salvador’s gang problem through rehabilitation and social reintegration have mostly been limited to the modest efforts of a handful of evangelical churches, but even these have become untenable under the current crackdown. One pastor, who requested his name be withheld for fear of reprisal, told me the state of emergency has undone years of work, with the authorities arresting all the former gang members who were undergoing rehabilitation at his church, along with many others who had previously done so and successfully reintegrated into society.

In another case, the wife of a former MS-13 member from Honduras told Amnesty International that he left the gang in 2018 upon completing a prison sentence for robbery in California. Deported to his homeland that year, he moved to El Salvador where he worked in call centers to support her and their children. On 30 March police raided their home in search of drugs or guns. They found neither but arrested the man upon confirming he had gang tattoos.

His wife shared police and employment records with Amnesty International confirming there were no prior or current charges against him in El Salvador as of July 2021 and proving he had worked in call centers from 2019 to 2022. Despite him showing the police these documents, she says he was placed in pretrial detention for alleged membership of an illegal group, alongside hundreds of other defendants in one of the opaque mass hearings that have become the norm in recent weeks.

President Bukele, who jokingly calls himself “the world’s coolest dictator”, has sought to shape public perception of his policies by limiting access to information and stigmatizing critical journalists, forcing some into exile. He has repeatedly attacked Juan Martínez, a journalist and anthropologist who specializes in covering the gangs, calling him “trash” on Twitter in April and prompting an avalanche of threats and attacks from his zealous social media followers and a swathe of senior government officials.

Martínez, who was forced to leave El Salvador, told me the authorities are trying to discredit all those who pose a threat to the government’s carefully crafted narratives. This includes his brothers Óscar and Carlos, who recently published shocking evidence in the digital outlet El Faro that the collapse of a secret government pact with MS-13 was behind the outbreak of violence in March and the subsequent “war on gangs”.

Many journalists have had Pegasus spyware used against them and the government recently passed a vaguely worded law permitting 15-year prison sentences for those who “reproduce or transmit messages or statements originating or presumably originating” from gangs, if those messages “could generate anxiety and panic”.

Another local journalist who works the gang beat told me he noticed men photographing him, following his car and surveilling his home last year – something he had never experienced under previous governments. He fears being criminalized under the new gag law and worries the president’s verbal onslaughts could encourage physical violence against journalists. He too has considered leaving the country but does not want to uproot or abandon his family.

El Salvador must not continue down this pathway of contempt for human rights.

The only way to protect the population and deliver justice for the gangs’ victims is to guarantee robust investigations, due process, and fair trials, while simultaneously tackling the root causes of violent crime and facilitating rehabilitation and social reintegration.

President Bukele must change course immediately.

This article was originally published in El País

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“Three years ago we met with President Nayib Bukele and he pledged to respect human rights. Since then, however, he has repeatedly failed to keep his word”, said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

“On the pretext of punishing gangs, the Salvadoran authorities are committing widespread and flagrant violations of human rights and criminalizing people living in poverty. Instead of offering an effective response to the dramatic violence caused by gangs and the historic public security challenges facing the country, they are subjecting the Salvadoran people to a tragedy. Victims of gang violence urgently deserve justice, but this can only be achieved through robust investigations and fair trials that ensure due process and effective sentencing.”

Over the past few weeks, an Amnesty International crisis response team has meticulously documented 28 cases of human rights violations involving 34 people, interviewing victims and their families, human rights organizations, journalists, people currently or formerly involved in the administration of justice, and community leaders. In addition, the organization requested meetings with various authorities, including President Nayib Bukele.

Arbitrary detention, unlawful deprivation of liberty and judicial guarantees

The state of emergency, recent amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure and their implementation in this context by the Specialized Courts, the Attorney General’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office, among others, have undermined the rights to defence, the presumption of innocence, effective judicial remedy and access to an independent judge. International human rights law, which is binding on the Salvadoran authorities, does not allow these rights to be restricted, even under a state of emergency.

Amnesty International found that thousands of people are being detained without the legal requirements being met – there was no administrative or judicial arrest warrant and the person was not apprehended in flagrante delicto – purely because the authorities view them as having been identified as criminals in the stigmatizing speeches of President Bukele’s government, because they have tattoos, are accused by a third party of having alleged links to a gang, are related to someone who belongs to a gang, have a previous criminal record of some kind, or simply because they live in an area under gang control, which are precisely the areas with high levels of marginalization and that have historically been abandoned by the state.

On the pretext of punishing gangs, the Salvadoran authorities are committing widespread and flagrant violations of human rights and criminalizing people living in poverty

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

After arrest, people are deprived of their liberty and at their court hearings most are charged with membership of “illegal groups”, a crime that carries a penalty of 20 to 30 years’ imprisonment. During detention, and before being brought before a judge (which usually happens after 15 days’ detention, following the suspension, as part of the state of emergency, of the constitutional maximum period of 72 hours of “administrative detention”), the detainee does not usually have contact with their legal representative, not even just prior to the hearing, or, if they do, it is only for a few minutes. Moreover, a minority of people have been able to access private defenders and they do not have access to the case file and do not know what information the Prosecutor’s Office has submitted. These hearings can see up to 500 people charged at a time and they are summarily resolved. Virtually all the accused are subject to prosecution by the judiciary, even in the absence of any evidence.

In virtually all the cases documented by Amnesty International, people stated that there were times when they did not know where their relatives were being held. In at least one case, they still do not know, which could constitute enforced disappearance. This has led dozens of people to file appeals before the Constitutional Chamber for the person to appear before a court (habeas corpus). However, to date, human rights organizations have reported that there has been no progress in these proceedings.

In one case, the police arrested a woman, who was a single parent and works as a food vendor, in her home at the beginning of April, without an arrest or search warrant, for allegedly being a gang member. At the court hearing, which dealt with more than 500 people at the same time, a Specialized Court imposed a pre-trial detention order on her for the crime of membership of an illegal group, despite the fact that, according to her family, there was no evidence of this. Years ago, police had arrested the vendor on the same charge and beat her severely in detention. In addition to their being unable to prove the charges, she was awarded financial reparation after she reported the police officers for abuse of authority. Since then, she and her children have been forcibly displaced as a result of constant threats from the police. The vendor and her family had returned to their home a few months before her arrest in April.

Her daughter reported that, the next day, local police returned to the house and put a gun to her head, threatening that she would be next. In May, the young woman was arrested by the same police officers who had arrested her mother and threatened her. Amnesty International documented two other cases in which arrests were preceded by situations in which victims had reported police abuse to the authorities in previous years.

“It’s alarming to see how the three branches of the state, including judicial institutions, are operating in an extremely coordinated manner to prosecute thousands of people in a summary, illegal and indiscriminate manner. The political use of the bodies created to guarantee justice undermines the rule of law and is facilitating the commission of serious human rights violations and even crimes under international law”, said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

“The arrest and criminal prosecution without due process of more than 35,000 people in less than three months would not have been possible if the judicial authorities had fulfilled their mandate. Instead, they are acting as accomplices to a public security policy ordered at the highest level that tramples on inalienable human rights, accepting as a necessary evil the widespread and unjust prosecution and imprisonment of people living in poverty.”

Right to life and physical integrity

Amnesty International has documented cases of torture and ill-treatment inside detention centres. The statements collected reveal the level of control that gang members exert inside cells and the extreme overcrowding, which result in violations of the right to life and physical integrity, and in insanitary conditions, food shortages and lack of basic hygiene, seriously affecting the health of detainees. By the end of May, local media reported that, due to the increase in arrests, 1.7% of the country’s population over the age of 18 was in detention, resulting in overcrowding of over 250% of the prison capacity.

In one case, a 16-year-old adolescent was arrested on 29 April by members of the police and armed forces and detained for 13 days, accused of membership of an illegal group. During the first night he was chained to the wall in a police detention centre for adults and he said he was beaten by police officers. He was later transferred to a youth detention facility, where members of a gang with whom he shared a cell repeatedly tortured him, punching him in the head and face, kicking him in the chest, abdomen and legs and constantly threatening him. He said they also threw a bag full of urine at his head. He said that officials at the facility knew about and tolerated these acts of torture and ill-treatment.

As of 28 May, at least 18 people were reported to have died in state custody during the state of emergency. Given the precarious prison conditions, there is a well-founded fear that the number of fatalities could increase in the coming days.

Amnesty International documented the death of William Alexander Galeas González, aged 36, who was detained on 13 April along with his mother and sister for alleged links to gangs. On 12 May, a funeral home visited the family to inform them of William’s death; the family had been unable to communicate with him since his detention. To date, no authority has notified them of the death or contacted them. According to a document from the Institute of Forensic Medicine, the forensic report points to pulmonary oedema as a preliminary cause of death. The family reported that when they checked the body they observed multiple bruises.

“These deaths in state custody are the ultimate expression of the cruelty of a policy implemented with the ostensible justification of reducing violence in the country at any cost. The Salvadoran authorities must investigate all arbitrary deaths immediately and not allow a single one more”, said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

Rights of children and adolescents

According to data from the Salvadoran Institute for the Comprehensive Development of Children and Adolescents, between 27 March and 17 May at least 1,190 people under the age of 18 were detained and held in youth detention facilities. Most were charged with membership of illegal groups or terrorist organizations.

Amnesty International documented the case of two cousins, aged 14 and 15, who were both detained on 26 April while they were playing outside their home in Ilopango. Their families reported that police officers accused them of “looking like criminals” (“cara de malandros”) without giving any further justification for their detention; they also told the mothers that their children would spend 30 years in detention. Since then, their mothers have been unable to communicate with them and have little information about the criminal proceedings they face. They say the assigned public defender gave them very little information and barely argued on behalf of their children during the hearing.

Journalists, human rights defenders and judicial officials

Amnesty International spoke with five Salvadoran journalists, three of whom had had to move house or leave the country because of harassment by the state or third parties. Two reported having reliable information about possible criminal investigations against them as a form of retaliation. In the context of the state of emergency, not only have changes to the law been approved that put people who report on the phenomenon of gangs at risk of criminalization and potential sentences of up to 15 years in prison, but, public officials and the official media have also publicly accused journalists and researchers of having links with gangs, without evidence, in an attempt to stigmatize and deter them from carrying out their work as journalists.

On 11 April, President Bukele tweeted that Juan Martínez, a researcher and anthropologist specializing in issues of violence and gangs, was “trash“, following an interview in which he expressed his views on the phenomenon of gangs in the country. Juan Martinez told Amnesty International that the authorities are trying to silence and exile journalism, as well as discrediting recent pieces of investigative journalism that point to the existence of secret negotiations between the government and the gangs. Hours after President Bukele publicly denigrated Juan Martínez, the Director of the Prison Service accused journalists at the newspaper El Faro of being terrorists, spokesmen for the gangs, and mercenaries.

Similarly, public officials at the highest level have publicly accused human rights organizations of supporting gang-generated crime. In addition, the Salvadoran Network of Human Rights Defenders recorded the arrest of six community leaders from the municipality of Jiquilisco in Usulután in the context of the state of emergency. The authorities had put them under house arrest, without giving any reasons for their detention, and they had subsequently been accused of having links with gangs.

Victims of gang violence urgently deserve justice, but this can only be achieved through robust investigations and fair trials that ensure due process and effective sentencing

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

In another case, Amnesty International documented the detention of four trade unionists, including Dolores Almendares, who works in the Cuscatancingo Town Hall and is General Secretary of the SETRAMUC union, who was arrested on 6 May while on sick leave with an arm injury. She was charged and placed in pre-trial detention, accused of membership of an illegal group, but her family and union colleagues believe that the detention may be connected with her defence of workers’ rights.

In addition, Amnesty International spoke with two former judicial officials and a sitting judge who detailed the attacks on judicial independence experienced by those involved in the administration of justice, including reprimands and appeals from high-level judicial officials demanding that they do not acquit those accused under the state of emergency and that they impose pre-trial detention as a general rule.

“The magnitude of the human rights violations demands a strong and immediate response from the international community. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and UN protection mechanisms must be given access to the country, and in particular to detention centres and judicial hearings, so that they can verify the general situation in relation to respect for human rights”, said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

“We call on President Bukele’s government to immediately reverse the recent measures that violate human rights and to establish a dialogue with national and international civil society organizations and international human rights protection mechanisms in order to establish a public security policy that is effective and respects human rights.”

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Amnesty International press office: press@amnesty.org

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“This sentence is a travesty of justice. Suffering an obstetric emergency is devastating for anyone, and the role of the state when this happens should be to provide accompaniment and support to alleviate this suffering; not to exacerbate it by criminalizing women.

“In a context where countries all over Latin America are taking great strides in favour of the right to legal abortion, it is truly disappointing to see that El Salvador continues to stand on the wrong side of history and human rights.”

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Amnesty International press office: press@amnesty.org

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“Over the last 30 days, President Bukele’s government has trampled all over the rights of the Salvadoran people. From legal reforms that flout international standards, to mass arbitrary arrests and the ill treatment of detainees, Salvadoran authorities have created a perfect storm of human rights violations, which is now expected to continue with the extension of the emergency decree.   

“In El Salvador today, children aged between 12 and 16 are subject to prison sentences of up to 10 years, people from poor and marginalized communities can be arbitrarily arrested without the right to legal defense, prisoners can be held without sufficient food or fresh air, and journalists can be jailed merely for reporting on gang-related activity.  

Over the last 30 days, President Bukele’s government has trampled all over the rights of the Salvadoran people. From legal reforms that flout international standards, to mass arbitrary arrests and the ill treatment of detainees, Salvadoran authorities have created a perfect storm of human rights violations, which is now expected to continue with the extension of the emergency decree

Erika Guevara Rosas, directora para las Américas de Amnistía Internacional

“The government must stop its hostile posturing against civil society and the international community and take stock of the appalling effects its policies are having on human rights.

“We call upon the international community to help avert a nascent human rights crisis in El Salvador, and on authorities in the country to cease abuses and ensure independent investigations into human rights violations that have already occurred.”

Background

On 27 March, El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved a state of emergency at the request of President Nayib Bukele, following reports of a spike in gang-related killings over the preceding weekend.

The emergency decree suspends certain fundamental rights – which, according to international law, should not be derogated under any circumstances – including the right to legal defense, and the right to be informed of the reasons behind a detention, among others.

On 30 March, the Legislative Assembly approved further measures, including the establishment of indefinite time periods for pretrial detention; the ability to try people accused of crimes in absentia – that is without their presence in court; the ability to sentence minors aged between 12 and 16 to up to 10 years in prison for gang-related crimes; and the establishment of prison sentences for those who “directly or indirectly benefit from relationships of any nature” with gangs – a vaguely worded provision that does not meet the requirements of international law. Other measures that do not comply with international standards were also approved.

On 5 April, the Legislative Assembly again approved concerning reforms to the country’s Criminal Code, establishing prison sentences for all those that reproduce content supposedly originated by gangs. This vaguely worded provision raised fears of censorship and criminalization of journalists who report on gang-related violence in El Salvador.

According to President Bukele, as of 25 April 2022 – 30 days after the start of the state of emergency – at least 17,000 people had been arrested in the context of the measures.

Civil society and the families of those detained have reported arbitrary detentions by security forces.

Videos have also circulated purportedly showing ill treatment of the detained by security forces, such as a video in which a uniformed individual appears to be standing on the head of a subdued prisoner. This video was allegedly posted on the Twitter account of the National Police before being taken down. President Bukele has also made comments on Twitter suggesting that the detained would not receive full food rations or fresh air, in contravention of international standards.

According to media reports, at least four people have allegedly died in detention in the context of the state of emergency.

El Salvador’s government has openly attacked those criticizing the measures, using social media to stigmatize civil society representatives and those pertaining to the international community.

The state of emergency was due to end on 25 April 2022 but was renewed by the Legislative Assembly for another 30-day period.

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Amnesty International press office at: press@amnesty.org

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“The drastic rise in homicides has made it clear that public security challenges remain. Amnesty International stands in solidarity with the families and communities of those who died violently last weekend, and with all victims of violence and human rights abuses in El Salvador,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

“Undoubtedly, the critical levels of violence that the country has been facing for years demand urgent action to protect the lives and safety of people in the face of criminality. To this end, the state is obliged to design and implement measures that are necessary, effective, proportional and in accordance with human rights. However, many of the actions that the Salvadoran authorities have implemented so far are unacceptable and in no way justified.”

Human rights violations cannot be the solution to violence; they only worsen the grave situation, generating a context of abuses and arbitrariness from which there is no return

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

The Emergency Decree and the legal reforms undertaken to instruments such as the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure contain precepts that flagrantly violate the rights to due process and judicial guarantees. The Salvadoran authorities must guarantee the population a comprehensive response that respects human rights.

“In 2019, when Amnesty International met with President Bukele, he pledged to be a fresh voice and to distance himself from models of governance that disrespect human rights in Central America. However, throughout his term in office we have observed consistent non-compliance with his commitments and a context where human rights are constantly at risk and deteriorating,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

“President Bukele has shown that, not only has he not changed the failed policies of past governments in El Salvador, but he repeats them despite knowing the outcome. Human rights violations cannot be the solution to violence; they only worsen the grave situation, generating a context of abuses and arbitrariness from which there is no return.”

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Amnesty International Report 2021/22: The State of the World’s Human Rights details how, two years into the pandemic, the Americas is still the region with the most deaths from Covid-19, largely due to limited and unequal access to healthcare, poorly funded public health systems, and inadequate social protection policies and measures for marginalized communities. Impunity for grave human rights violations and crimes under international law remains a serious concern in more than half the countries in the region, while attacks on judicial independence have also increased.

“It’s shameful and unconscionable that instead of addressing the injustices and deep-seated inequalities that have plagued the Americas for generations and exacerbated the impact of the pandemic, many governments have instead sought to silence and repress those who protest peacefully and speak out in demand of a safer, fairer and more compassionate world,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

The Americas has achieved the world’s second-highest vaccination rates per capita, with Cuba and Chile leading the way in vaccinating over 90 percent of their populations, but unequal regional access has undermined protection in countries like Haiti, where less than two percent of the population had been vaccinated as of 10 March 2022. Meanwhile, wealthy nations such as the USA and Canada stockpiled more doses than needed and turned a blind eye as Big Pharma put profits ahead of people, refusing to share their technology to enable wider distribution of vaccines.

“Many states in the Americas have made encouraging progress in vaccinating their populations, but they must do much more to ensure equal and universal access to vaccines in every country and address the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, which has disproportionately affected those who already face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalization, such as women and Indigenous and Afro-descendent people,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

Even before the pandemic, the Americas had the world’s highest rates of income inequality. The continent’s uneven economic recovery last year made little impact on the consequences of decades of structural inequality and proved insufficient to reverse the 2020 economic downturn, which brought record unemployment, falling incomes and increases in poverty. This has worsened preexisting humanitarian emergencies in countries like Haiti and Venezuela, where millions of people continue to lack access to sufficient food and health care.

It’s shameful and unconscionable that instead of addressing the injustices and deep-seated inequalities that have plagued the Americas for generations and exacerbated the impact of the pandemic, many governments have instead sought to silence and repress those who protest peacefully and speak out in demand of a safer, fairer and more compassionate world

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Meanwhile, efforts to stifle independent and critical voices gathered steam in 2021 as states deployed a widening gamut of tools and tactics, including threats, harassment, politically motivated arbitrary arrests, unfounded prosecutions, unlawful surveillance, excessive use of force, enforced disappearance and unlawful killings, to crack down on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

At least 36 states in the USA introduced more than 80 pieces of draft legislation limiting the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, while in Colombia authorities brutally repressed protesters during last year’s National Strike, resulting in 46 deaths, 3,275 arbitrary detentions, over 100 ocular injuries, and 49 reports of sexual violence.

Cuban authorities also arbitrarily detained hundreds of people during historic protests last July and banned another march to call for their release in October, as well as resorting to internet shutdowns to prevent people from sharing information about repression and organizing in response. Surreptitious digital technologies were further weaponized in El Salvador, where NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware was deployed against journalists and activists on a massive scale.

Dozens of journalists and media workers were threatened, censored, attacked and detained across the region, with Mexico remaining the world’s most lethal country for journalists after recording nine killings in 2021 and at least eight more in early 2022.

Excessive and unnecessary use of force in law enforcement operations also proved deadly in many countries, including Brazil, where the deadliest ever operation by police in Rio de Janeiro left 27 residents of the Jacarezinho favela dead last May. In the USA, police shot dead at least 888 people in 2021, with Black people disproportionately impacted.

Racism and discrimination remained prevalent across the Americas, with inadequate access to water, sanitation, health services and social benefits exacerbating the impact of the pandemic on Indigenous peoples in particular. Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela all continued to allow major extractive, agricultural and infrastructure projects to proceed without obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of affected Indigenous peoples, and sometimes despite judicial orders to suspend operations.

Despite some progress, action on climate change remained limited. The Escazú Agreement, a regional treaty for environmental justice and the protection of environmental defenders in Latin America and the Caribbean, finally came into force last April, although Cuba, Honduras and Venezuela have yet to sign it and 12 other countries have still not ratified it. The USA rejoined the Paris Agreement under President Biden and sought to reverse hundreds of laws and policies that the Trump administration passed to deregulate the environmental and energy sectors, but it continued to approve oil drilling projects on federal land.

Brazil’s President Bolsonaro continued to encourage deforestation and extraction of natural resources in the Amazon, exacerbating the impact of the climate crisis on Indigenous peoples’ lands and territories, and drawing accusations of genocide and ecocide before the International Criminal Court. Elsewhere, Canada continued to subsidize the fossil fuel industry, Bolivia passed regulations that incentivized logging and the burning of forests, and Mexico, the world’s 11^th largest greenhouse gas emitter, failed to present new emission reduction targets at COP26.

Tens of thousands of people – mostly from Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Venezuela – fled human rights violations related to violence, poverty, inequality and climate change throughout the year. Yet the governments of Canada, Chile, Curaçao, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and the USA continued to prohibit the entry of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, and violated international law by deporting, without proper consideration of their claims, those who did make it across borders.

Tens of thousands of Haitian refugees sought international protection, but governments across the region failed to shield them from detention and unlawful pushbacks, extortion, racial discrimination and gender-based violence. US border control officials pushed back over a million refugees and migrants at the US-Mexico border, including tens of thousands of unaccompanied children, using Covid-19 public health provisions as a pretext.

Gender-based violence remains a major concern across the region, with measures to protect women and girls inadequate throughout the region, and investigations into domestic violence, rape and femicide often flawed. Mexico recorded 3,716 killings of women in 2021, of which 969 were investigated as femicides, while Mexican security forces used excessive force, arbitrary detentions and sexual violence against women protesters. Both Paraguay and Puerto Rico declared states of emergency because of increased violence against women and there were also significant increases in violence against women in Peru and Uruguay.

The Americas saw some limited progress in the recognition of the rights of LGBTI people last year with Argentina introducing identity cards recognizing people who identify as non-binary and passing a law to promote the employment of trans people. President Biden’s government took steps to repeal the previous administration’s discriminatory policies toward LGBTI people in the USA, but hundreds of state-level bills were also introduced that would curtail their rights.

From Argentina to Colombia, the green tide has built up unstoppable momentum and shown that change is possible even in seemingly hopeless situations. The feminist activists of the Americas are an inspiration for all the world to never stop standing up for human rights 

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Legislation that would better protect the rights of LGBTI people was blocked in many parts of the region, while individuals in several countries continued to be the targets of discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. The Americas accounted for 316 of 375 trans and gender-diverse people reported murdered worldwide from October 2020 to September 2021, with Brazil recording 125 killings – more than any other country on earth.

Many governments did not do enough to prioritize sexual and reproductive health in 2021. Essential services were lacking, and safe abortion services remained criminalized in most countries, with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica and Nicaragua maintaining total bans on abortion. State governments in the USA introduced more abortion restrictions than in any other year, with Texas enacting a near-total ban that criminalizes abortion just six weeks into pregnancy.

Undeterred, Latin America’s vibrant feminist movement has continued to gain momentum since Argentina legalized abortion in late 2020, with Mexico’s Supreme Court declaring the criminalization of abortion unconstitutional in September 2021 and in Colombia’s Constituional Court decriminalizing abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy in February 2022.

“From Argentina to Colombia, the green tide has built up unstoppable momentum and shown that change is possible even in seemingly hopeless situations. The feminist activists of the Americas are an inspiration for all the world to never stop standing up for human rights,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas. 

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Amnesty International press office: press@amnesty.org

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Amnesty International, Access Now and Citizen Lab will provide expert opinion at a hearing.

NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is being used as a weapon to silence journalists in El Salvador and across the world.

Belissa Guerrero Rivas, Regional Advocacy Coordinator for the Americas at Amnesty International

The moves follows a joint investigation by Access Now, and the Citizen Lab, published in January, which identified the use of NSO Group’s notorious Pegasus spyware against journalists and members of civil society organizations in El Salvador.

Technical experts from Amnesty International’s Security Lab peer-reviewed the findings and independently verified forensic evidence showing that Pegasus has been abused in the country.

“NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is being used as a weapon to silence journalists in El Salvador and across the world. The IACHR hearing is a key step towards accountability for people who have been unlawfully targeted by spyware,” said Belissa Guerrero Rivas, Regional Advocacy Coordinator for the Americas at Amnesty International.

“The unlawful use of Pegasus in El Salvador is part of a wider pattern of harassment and threats against journalists and human rights defenders, who work in an increasingly hostile environment. This underscores the need for a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation into the unlawful use of this technology in the country. There also needs to be an immediate moratorium on the use of spyware technology until a regulatory framework that protects human rights is implemented.”

Wednesday’s hearing is the first by the IACHR on cyber-surveillance in the country. The hearing was requested by the Asociación de Periodistas de El Salvador Periódico Digital El Faro, Revista Gato Encerrado, Fundación para el Debido Proceso and the Centro por la Justicia y el Derecho Internacional), following January’s revelations.

The IACHR hearing will be available to watch here

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