Relatives of prisoners detained during the anti-gang “war” declared in 2022 in El Salvador by President Nayib Bukele, began a campaign on Tuesday to secure prison visits, where there are more than 80,000 alleged gang members. About 200 people, including housewife Luisa Hernández, gathered at the central Liberty Square in San Salvador, the capital, where lawyers from the Movement of Victims of the Regime (Movir) were receiving documents to process the release of “innocents.”
This 48-year-old housewife said she hasn’t been able to see her 24-year-old daughter Adriana for 20 months, who was detained as part of Bukele’s anti-gang “war.” “I’m not saying my daughter is innocent just because I gave birth to her, it’s because I have documents to prove her innocence,” Hernández said.
The anti-gang “war,” which has so far accumulated 82,000 detainees, has drastically reduced homicides in El Salvador, but human rights groups denounce the arrest of thousands of innocents and abuses in prisons, where family visits have not been allowed for two and a half years.
Bukele’s crusade is supported by a state of exception that allows arrests without a judicial order.
Let him do the minimum
Hernández related that every month she would bring her daughter a package of food, clothes, and toilet paper to Apanteos prison in Santa Ana, about 65 km west of San Salvador, but this month she hasn’t been able to do so due to lack of money. “What we ask of the State from out here is to do the minimum and lift the restrictions on family visits as requested by the IACHR (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights),” said Hernández.
“We are poor people, we are people of low resources who are paying for the crimes that criminals committed, just for living in a low-quality neighborhood” that was controlled by a gang, she added. Samuel Ramírez, from Movir’s board, said that released prisoners report that there is “a humanitarian crisis” in the prisons. Moreover, “families don’t know what conditions they’re in: if they’re dead, alive, sick, or in what state of health.”
I haven’t seen him again
While queuing in the square to be attended by Movir’s lawyers, Elizabeth Cañas showed documents that she says support the innocence of her son Josué Alfaro Cañas, 27, captured on July 3, 2022. “It’s been more than two years that I’ve been struggling day by day for them to give me an answer and grant freedom to my son. My son is unjustly in prison,” the 44-year-old woman said.
“To date, I haven’t seen him again, I don’t know anything, and I have many documents that prove my son was a working man,” she added. In addition to a certificate declaring her son clean of criminal records, Cañas shows AFP some study diplomas, pension fund contribution status, and a record from the company where he worked.
One by one, the relatives of the prisoners arrived at the tables set up under the shade of trees in the square, where a team of lawyers attended to them. “We are in the disposition to collaborate with them and help them fill out (a form) of important documentation,” 29-year-old lawyer Jaqueline Martínez explained.
She indicated that the documents will be delivered to the presidential commissioner for Human Rights, Andrés Guzmán. According to humanitarian organizations, 30% of those detained in the anti-gang “war” are innocent.
