May 21, 2023
As human rights, faith, environmental, solidarity and Salvadoran diaspora groups in the United States and internationally, we express our solidarity with human rights organizations in El Salvador advocating on behalf of people unjustly detained under the State of Exception, and denounce the police harassment and surveillance against them which has markedly increased in the two years since the start of the State of Exception.
At a joint press conference on April 18, the Movement of Victims of the Regime (MOVIR), the Committee of Families of Political Prisoners in El Salvador (COFAPPES), Humanitarian Legal Aid (Socorro Jurídico Humanitario), the “Herbert Anaya Sanabria” Human Rights Collective, and the Committee of Relatives of Victims of the State of Exception of the Bajo Lempa detailed an alarming pattern of surveillance and police interference into their participation in street marches, protests, and rallies, as well as online harassment.
- In February 2024, Ivania Cruz, the spokesperson for COFAPPES, obtained a report from the Office of the Attorney General that details surveillance against her and her participation in human rights defense groups. The surveillance file included photos from her personal Facebook page and of marches in which she participated.
- Human rights defenders with MOVIR described having their events infiltrated and surveilled by government intelligence officers posing as journalists from fabricated news services, including at a press conference they held on July 7, 2023, after which they were followed and pulled over by police. Group leaders were threatened with arrest until legitimate journalists arrived to document the harassment.
- Members of the Committee of Relatives of Victims of the State of Exception of the Bajo Lempa denounced the arbitrary arrest and torture of 8 underage youth on November 5, 2022 following their participation in a community theater that warned of the dangers of repeating El Salvador’s history of militarized repression.
- The Bajo Lempa Committee of Victims’ Relatives also described having their buses stopped and identification cards confiscated by police while en route to a march on May 1, 2023. Socorro Juridico Humanitario denounced multiple police attempts to enter the building where they share offices with unions that are critical of the government and condemned the constant social media campaign, directed by the government, to defame their leaders and organization.
We strongly condemn these violations of the democratic rights of these human rights defenders, legal advocates and community organizers, whose work is essential to a free and just society, and of the use of state funds to surveil and intimidate them and to attempt to circumscribe the exercise of their political rights.
Since the Bukele government implemented the State of Exception in March 2022, suspending basic constitutional protections and civil liberties, nearly 80,000 people have been detained and close to 250 people have died in state custody. Pre-trial detention limits have been extended – initially from six months to two years and subsequently an additional two years – forcing prisoners to languish for years under inhumane prison conditions with no opportunity to prove their innocence. Most detainees are denied contact with lawyers or family members, in violation of the American Convention on Human Rights, to which El Salvador is a signatory. The continuation of this policy is illegal and violates the Salvadoran constitution. The Bukele regime has also unjustly jailed political rivals, prominent environmentalists, over a dozen unionists, and other activists.
We cannot normalize the Bukele administration’s attempts to criminalize human rights defenders who advocate for the rights of those unjustly detained under the State of Exception which intends to silence criticism of the inhumane and deadly policy.
Therefore, the undersigned human rights, faith, environmental and Salvadorans diaspora groups accompany the demands of these human rights defenders and call on:
- the office of the Attorney General to ensure that its announced investigation into the targeted surveillance of human rights attorney Ivania Cruz be thorough and transparent;
- the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to grant protective measures to spokespeople from Movement of Victims of the Regime (MOVIR), the Committee of Families of Political Prisoners in El Salvador (COFAPPES), Socorro Jurídico Legal, and the Committee of Relatives of Victims of the State of Exception of the Bajo Lempa in order to guarantee the safety of human rights defenders and their rights to free speech and freedom of association;
- the United States government to halt security assistance to El Salvador, which is being used to target human rights defenders and perpetuate the erosion of democracy in the country.
San Salvador, 21 de Mayo, 2024
To read the full statement, please click here.
