El Salvador: News & Updates

On September 22, 18 members of the US House of Representatives from across ten states and the District of Columbia (all Democrats) sent a letter to US Secretary of State Rubio and US Secretary of Homeland Security Noem, urging them to address the horrific conditions in the prisons in El Salvador and to stop deporting migrants from the US to El Salvador.

“These prison conditions represent not only cruelty that threatens human dignity, but also serious violations by El Salvador of its obligations under international human rights law,” wrote the lawmakers in their letter. “Moreover, the United States, as party to the Convention Against Torture, is obligated to not send a person to a country where there are ‘substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.’”

In Cleveland, OH, the InterReligious Task Force on Central America mobilized to collect almost 100 signatures on a petition to the Ohio congressional delegation, urging them to support this urgent human rights initiative. Regrettably, none of the US House representatives  from districts in Ohio added their names before the September 19 deadline.

In 2022, Bukele's government declared a State of Emergency and suspended key constitutional rights and due process. Almost 90,000 Salvadorans (including political prisoners) are being held in indefinite pretrial detention, cut off from contact with their families or attorneys. Early this year, the US president paid Bukele 4.7 million to illegally deport almost 300 Salvadorans and Venezuelans to the infamous CECOT mega prison where they faced torture and other serious abuses. It is documented that at least 435 people have died in custody over the past three years. Outside of the prisons, youth in El Salvador have denounced torture and arbitrary arrest at the hands of soldiers during "military enclosures" of their communities. The cozy relationship between the two presidents is an affront to international human rights standards.  

The Bukele regime is now ramping up persecution against environmental defenders, human rights defenders, journalists and attorneys who have exposed and denounced the mass incarceration and abuses the prisons. We at IRTF will therefore continue to urge our legislators to:.

1) call for investigations into the prison conditions and an end to the rendition of any immigrants to Salvadoran prisons  

2) take action to protect Salvadoran immigrants and asylum seekers from being deported, given widespread and ongoing arbitrary detention into deadly prison conditions where they would face the risk of torture

3) support the demands of Salvadoran families of the victims of the Bukele crackdown, including a) the immediate release of people for whom the State has not proven guilt; b) the rejection of mass trials and call for immediate and individualized proceedings to ensure adequate legal defense; and c) an end to the “State of Exception,” which has suspended many constitutional protections in El Salvador since 2022 

If you would like to circulate copies of the petition, please contact irtf@irtfcleveland.org

See full text of the congressional letter here:

https://mcgovern.house.gov/uploadedfiles/house_letter_el_salvador_prison_conditions_250922.pdf

On El Salvador’s Independence Day, about 1,500 activists marched in San Salvador demanding the release of political prisoners and denouncing arbitrary arrests under President Bukele’s gang crackdown. The event highlighted tensions between the government’s tough security policies and human rights concerns that affect daily life for locals and visitors alike.

Alejandro Henríquez and José Ángel Pérez are being prosecuted for the alleged crimes of public disorder and aggravated resistance. The investigation phase is now scheduled to conclude in December 2025. 

Defense attorneys confirmed the court’s decision to LA PRENSA GRÁFICA, as did the organization Foro del Agua, which announced the decision on its accounts on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

The organization called the decision “unjust” and “arbitrary,” as it lengthens both men’s time in custody without any evidence of their alleged crimes.

Washington, D.C. — The terms of a previously secret grant agreement between the United States and El Salvador facilitating the Trump-Vance administration’s practice of disappearing people indefinitely from U.S. territory into El Salvador’s notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison without due process, legal justification, or public accountability have, for the first time, been made available as part of an ongoing lawsuit. ...

He has swept away checks and balances. His government has made mass arrests. And his lawmakers just rewrote the Constitution to let him lead indefinitely, raising fears that the man who once jokingly called himself the world’s “coolest dictator” isn’t kidding anymore.

But for many Salvadorans, President Nayib Bukele has been a godsend.

After multiple postponements, a worrisome trial began in El Salvador on July 29: a re-trial of the Santa Marta 5, a group of well-known water defenders who had been instrumental in the country’s successful effort to ban mining in 2017. In a press conference prior to the start of the trial, grassroots organizations in El Salvador joined community leaders from Santa Marta to denounce the proceedings as “double jeopardy” in practice, “violating the legal principle that no one can be tried twice for the same crime.” The community concluding that “the only lawful and just outcome is the absolution of our environmental leaders” due to the lack of evidence against them. The case has been a flashpoint internationally for concerns about the integrity of the justice system and increasing risk to environmental and human rights defenders in El Salvador.A new trial against five Salvadoran environmentalists, accused of murdering a woman in 1989 during the civil war, will take place on Tuesday, announced the NGO they belong to, denouncing the case as a form of “persecution” for their anti-mining activism.

The environmentalists, who were guerrilla fighters at the time of the crime, were acquitted on October 18 along with three other former rebels also accused of the murder. However, a higher court overturned the ruling and ordered a retrial.

“The case is criminalization and persecution of environmental activism (…) they are key figures in the community resistance against metal mining,” said Alfredo Leiva, a board member of the Santa Marta Association for Economic and Social Development (ADES).

The five environmentalists helped push through the 2017 ban on mining, which was repealed last December by the pro-government Congress at the request of El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who supports gold mining operations.