source: CISPES
On July 7, a judge in El Salvador ordered that Atilio Montalvo, a signer of the 1992 Peace Accords on behalf of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, be placed under house arrest upon discharge from the hospital following a medical emergency. The decision now lies in the hands of prison authorities to enforce the ruling.
In a public statement following the hearing, his family stated that “the fact that Atilio was on the verge of death made the justice system react.” COFAPPES, the Committee of Family Members of Politically Prisecuted and Imprisoned people his family denounced that his current critical condition is a direct result of the state’s prolonged denial of adequate medical care — which they classify as torture: “The decision made this afternoon ... comes as a relief given his deteriorated health. He will remain hospitalized for now, and once stabilized, will be able to return home, from where he should never have been taken, nor should he have ever been captured — much less tortured.” (Read the full statement in English and Spanish)
Montalvo was arrested without a warrant on May 30, 2024 along with nine other leaders and volunteers of the National Alliance for a Peaceful El Salvador, a coalition of former guerrilla and former members of the Armed Forces that formed in 2021 to oppose Bukele’s consolidation of power. According to testimony of Montalvo’s family members, plainclothes officers lured him out of the house under false pretenses. Soon after, the Attorney General announced they would be charged with terrorism for allegedly planning violent acts during Bukele’s June 1, 2024 inauguration for an unconstitutional consecutive term.
Family members, organizations in El Salvador and international groups denounced the arrests as politically motivated and lacking evidence. Neither Montalvo nor any of the other members of the National Alliance for a Peaceful El Salvador who were arrested on May 30 and 21, 2024 have had a hearing, nor have their attorneys or family members been able to visit them in prison.
Montalvo has spent over a year in pretrial detention despite warnings from his family, attorney and physicians that incarceration would pose a risk to his life, as he suffers from end-stage kidney disease, hypertension and diabetes and was recovering from a stroke and heart surgery at the time of his arrest.
His health has steadily deteriorated while incarcerated, prompting his attorney to begin petitioning for alternatives to detention as early as November 2024. According to his daughter, he was transferred to a hospital last week after collapsing twice at the Santa Ana prison. Following public pressure and her warning that she would hold the state responsible if he died, a judge finally granted the long-delayed request for a special hearing.
The judge in the case—which is being prosecuted in an organized crime court—is anonymous, despite an Inter-American Human Rights Commission ruling that the use of “jueces sin rostro” violates the American Convention on Human Rights. The case is also “under reserve” at the Attorney General’s request, meaning proceedings are closed to the public and details are classified.
March 2022; the Movement of Victims of the Regime (MOVIR) now puts that number at over 100,000. The Associated Press has reported that 90% of those detained have yet to be tried before a judge. If and when they do have a hearing, it’s likely to take place before an unknown judge in an organized crime tribunal, where initial arraignments were done, in some cases, in groups of 500 people or more.
On July 26, 2023, over a year into the State of Exception, Bukele’s party passed legislative decree 803, which gave the Attorney General an additional two years in which to present proof against those who had been arrested under the emergency measure, most on the charges of “illicit groupings,” thereby extending their time in pretrial detention to well beyond the two-year limit established by Salvadoran law. The decree is set to expire on August 25, 2025, and, according to legal experts, if the Attorney General has not presented evidence against those detained, they should be freed. Families of the victims of arbitrary arrests are calling on the legislature not to renew the decree.
Since February, the Attorney General and police in El Salvador have increasingly targeted human rights defenders: Fidel Zavala of the Human and Community Rights Defense Unit (UNIDEHC), who denounced torture he witnessed in the prisons; attorney Ruth Lopez of Cristosal, who brought multiple charges of corruption against the government; attorney Alejandro Henriquez, who was accompanying rural communities in defense of land and water rights; and constitutional lawyer, Enrique Anaya. Arrest warrants were also issued for UNIDEHC attorneys Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya. Many other human rights defenders and journalists have also recently have fled the country.
Last year’s targeting of the National Alliance for a Peaceful El Salvador leaders helped set the stage for this current wave of repression as the Bukele regime’s first arrests related to peaceful protest. The Alliance was a powerful force that brought together voices from the left and from the right to denounce human rights abuses under the State of Exception and Bukele’s violations of the Constitution and of fundamental tenets of the 1992 Peace Accords, which Montalvo himself helped to negotiate.
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