Venezuelan men freed from an El Salvador prison share shocking stories of abuse they suffered while being held there. After months in captivity, they describe beatings, torture, and sexual assault in terrible conditions. Their testimonies shed light on the brutal treatment they faced at the hands of Salvadoran guards, with U.S. involvement raising urgent questions about responsibility and accountability.
8. August 2025
In El Salvador, land once turned into homes by the poor is now being claimed by private companies — with the government’s backing. In the Primero de Diciembre community, families face eviction from land they’ve lived on for 20 years after a company, Quebec S.A., suddenly asserted ownership. Residents say this is part of a broader pattern under President Bukele’s development agenda, where land privatization and forced displacement are accelerating. Activists warn that the government’s state of exception is being used not just against gangs, but to silence opposition and clear the way for tourism and real estate projects — threatening the rights and livelihoods of El Salvador’s most vulnerable.
Mass deportations are raising serious human rights concerns. As governments increase the number of people being sent back to their home countries, the impact on families, communities, and individuals is devastating. This article explores the dangers and ethical issues surrounding large-scale deportations and their long-lasting effects.
A court in El Salvador acquitted eight former guerrillas on September 24, 2025, of murdering a woman during the country’s civil war. The group includes five environmental activists who played a big role in the 2017 ban on metal mining, which President Nayib Bukele pushed to repeal in December 2024. Prosecutors charged them with killing María Inés Alvarenga in August 1989, claiming they saw her as an army informant. Several NGOs called the trial a form of persecution tied to the activists’ work against mining. The five environmentalists lead the Santa Marta Association for Economic and Social Development (ADES) and fought for the mining ban amid concerns over water pollution. Critics link the case to Bukele’s moves to open the country to mining, including joining an intergovernmental mining forum in 2021 and setting up a new energy and mines directorate.
Once again, the five prominent Water Defenders who faced politically-motivated charges have been declared innocent — and they should never have been arrested. International Allies against Mining in El Salvador calls upon the SalvadoranAttorney General to abstain from further legal action and demands that allcivil liabilities are dropped...
After the arrest of the five water defenders in January 2023 on politically-motivated charges, IRTF began engaging northeast Ohioans in an international solidarity campaign spanning 31 countries demanding that the bogus charges be dropped and denouncing the political motivations behind their detention given the lack of evidence presented by the Office of the Attorney General in El Salvador.
When the trial finally happened in October 2024, the water defenders were exonerated. Predictably, the attorney general appealed. The political motivation was clear. IRTF agreed with the assessment of the Salvadoran-based organization International Allies Against Metallic Mining that the criminalization of the Santa Marta 5 was part of President Bukele’s plan to roll back the hard-won national ban on metallic mining (which he did successfully in December 2024. See our RRN letter 16 SEP 2025).
The government prevailed when the acquittal was annulled by an appeals court in November 2024. A new trial was scheduled. After a few postponements, the verdict finally came down on September 24, 2025. The presiding tribunal in San Vicente found all five innocent of the charges of murder, kidnapping, and illicit association. Allies are urging the attorney general to not appeal and to stop wasting public time and money on this farce.
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
A vehicle blocked their car, and its passengers stepped out with their weapons, trying to attack the group. They managed to escape, but the incident was not the first – nor would it be the last time Bertha Zúñiga would face a violent threat.
That encounter came just over a year after Zúñiga’s mother, Berta Cáceres, a prominent Lenca Indigenous rights activist in Honduras, was killed in her home in March 2016, leading to Zúñiga taking the leadership of her group, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).
Zúñiga was a toddler when her mother started the group to defend indigenous Lenca land from commercial interests that local communities say harm and exploit it.
Bertha Zúñiga continues the fight that her mother began against powerful corporate and political interests. Facing death threats, smear campaigns, and even state security leaks, Zúñiga leads COPINH in defending Lenca land and water from destructive projects—undaunted by the risks that cost her mother’s life.
“Year after year, land and environmental defenders – those protecting our forests, rivers, and lands across the world – continue to be met with unspeakable violence. They are being hunted, harassed, and killed – not for breaking laws, but for defending life itself.
- Laura Furones (Global Witness lead author)
Global Witness documented 117 defender killings last year (82%) in Latin America, with 48 in Colombia, which had the most killings globally for the third year in a row. This is followed by Guatemala, where 20 defenders were killed in 2024 – up from four in 2023.
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.
