HRW documents more than 100 “arbitrary arrests” and deaths in El Salvador

Juan Pappier, senior researcher at the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW), stated this Friday on his Twitter account that the organization has documented more than 100 cases of “arbitrary arrests” Y “several deaths” under the exception regime in force in The Savior since the end of March.

“The Savior: We continue to receive reports of human rights violations in the exceptional regime”, Pappier published in the aforementioned social network.

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“We have already documented in detail a sample of more than 100 cases of arbitrary arrests and several deaths” and that “the agents who commit abuses must know that they will be prosecuted in the future”he added.

Local press reports indicate that under the emergency regime, which has already been extended twice by the Legislative Assembly, some 40 people have died in detention and in the custody of the authorities.

“In some cases, the families assure that the inmates died as a result of torture because, when reviewing the corpses, they have found fractured bones, skin lacerations, bruises and deep head wounds.”, El Diario de Hoy reported this Friday on its portal elsalvador.com.

At the beginning of May, HRW registered at least 40 cases of abuses committed in the Central American country during the emergency regime, decreed at the end of March to control a scale of violence attributed to gangs and under which more than 37,000 have been arrested. people accused of being gang members or having ties to these gangs.

In that first report, prepared in conjunction with the Salvadoran humanitarian organization Cristosal, it is stated that in 20 cases the security forces raided the homes of the victims without presenting a court order.

A woman reacts as police officers transfer her husband to a prison, as more than 37,000 people were detained during the state of emergency, according to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, in San Salvador, El Salvador. (REUTERS/Jose Cabezas/)

In 5 cases, witnesses indicated that police or soldiers had beaten people while they were being detained, they said.

The organizations pointed out that in most cases the witnesses indicated that the security forces had not presented an arrest warrant, nor explained the reasons for the arrests.

According to President Nayib Bukele, his government is “close” to winning the “war against the gangs” with this regime, which suspends constitutional rights, such as defense in criminal proceedings.

An investigation by El Faro indicates that the wave of murders that gave rise to this regime was triggered after the alleged rupture of a pact between the Bukele Executive and the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13). The president has not responded to this accusation.

There are nearly 3,000 complaints of alleged human rights violations received by local and international organizations, such as Amnesty International (AI).

Source: Elcomercio