Listen to the full Por La Libre program.
This Saturday, April 6, 2024, on Por la Libre, Peninsula 360 Press' Rodante Community Radio, Manuel Ortiz broadcast from El Salvador, a place where the Exception Regime, according to experts, has become an instrument of criminalization of people linked to civil society organizations.
Gabriela Santos, director of the Human Rights Institute of the José Simeon Cañas Central American University (UCA), considered that the country is experiencing a regression in terms of human rights, while compliance with the processes is not guaranteed, due to the fact that power is concentrated in a single person, President Nayib Bukele.
Currently, the Exception Regime has been inappropriately exploited, not only for gangs but also for community leaders and other human rights defenders.
"Even though we have all the elements that indicate that the person has no ties, I cannot guarantee that his family will be free, I cannot guarantee that following due process and the rules that exist, the person will be released, everything is arbitrary," Santos stressed.
According to the 2nd Annual Report on Human Rights Violations that Occurred under the State of Emergency in El Salvador, worrying cases have been documented where the regime can be used to criminalize the work of journalists, human rights defenders and community leaders, documenting cases where the justice system could be used to generate fear and silence voices, leading to a disarticulation of all community work carried out in the country.
According to documented cases, at least 34 human rights defenders have been detained under the regime, 23 of which are women.
Rina Montti, director of Human Rights Research for the organization Cristosal, commented that the Exception Regime, legally speaking, is a temporary measure that must be taken in order to attack a specific problem, in a specific period.
A 2-year Exceptional Regime, after having been implemented with so many arbitrary detainees, becomes a weapon for the communities, said Rina Montti, adding that the measure is a weapon that is being carried out to control the population.
"We have had cases of police officers who have arrested the new partners of their ex-partners, we have had police officers who have made arrests on a personal level, in the end they are revenge against family members, against ex-partners or as services to third parties," Montti said.
In light of this, experts considered that the Exceptional Regime had gotten out of control. A clear case is that of the community leader Santos Alfaro, which curiously happened in one of the areas of the country where the indicators of violence have been extremely low, which seems senseless, leaving in doubt the real reason for his arrest.
Samuel Ramirez, coordinator of the Victims of the Regime MovementMOVIR explained that human rights violations are the order of the day in El Salvador, as there are arbitrary arrests, persecutions, and military cordons that persecute people, especially young people.
“They have released 7,000 people who were supposedly innocent, people who are human beings with the right to live a free life, and then what happens to the people who were imprisoned for a year or more? Who is going to repair the damage?” Ramírez said.
He also pointed out that in the case of Santos Alfaro, many people know that he was a good person and dedicated to sport, a man who had his foot in his mouth.
José Santos Alfaro Ayala, a well-known community leader and co-founder of the Tamarindo Foundation, which carries out social work in the Guarjila canton and surrounding areas, was captured by police officers and detained for allegedly being involved with gangs, under the Exceptional Regime.
To learn more about the topic, listen to the full Por la Libre program of April 6, 2024, giving Click here.
You may be interested in: The other side of the coin of the emergency regime of El Salvador in the defense of human rights
