In El Salvador, the presumption of innocence and due process died

Santos Ramos Jiménez is 44 years old and works cutting sugar cane. He has done so for so many years that at this point in his life he is already beginning to show symptoms of renal failure, a disease linked to this activity due to the high temperatures they are exposed to and poor hydration. But today, more than his physical condition, he is hurt by the absence of his youngest son, Anderson, aged 15, who was taken away by the military on April 2 because they judged, by his appearance, that he was a gang member.

He was captured in his own home, located in the municipality of Puerto El Triunfo, department of Usulután, in eastern El Salvador. Santos says that the military entered according to them to check that no criminals were hiding there and since the farmer should not let them pass anything. The young man was sitting in the courtroom and was taken away without an arrest warrant against him. He is studying seventh grade and, according to his father and the principal of his school, he does his homework and has never done anything wrong.

His capture is one of the more than 13,500 that the security authorities in El Salvador have made since the Legislative Assembly approved an emergency regime on March 27 that suspended some constitutional rights, such as freedom of association and the right to due process. In addition, it extended the time limits for administrative detentions from 72 hours to 15 days, and deprived those arrested of the possibility of receiving legal defense.

President Nayib Bukele himself requested the emergency regime after the country reached 62 homicides committed in a single day on March 26, an all-time record. But the crisis of violence had begun two days earlier, on March 24, with an escalation that resulted in more than 80 violent deaths in 72 hours. Authorities attribute the killings to the country's main gangs, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18.

This disproportionate increase from a previous average of five homicides during the Bukele administration to about 26 daily newspapers between March 24 and 26 prompted various analysts to seek an explanation. For some it was the consequence of the breaking of the pact that Bukele would have entered into with the gangs to lower the death statistics in his government. For others, the most risky, it would have been a macabre official maneuver to justify their actions.

Bukele, who runs the country practically from his Twitter account, asked the Legislative Assembly to approve the emergency regime, which was done without hesitation by the deputies of his party, Nuevas Ideas, which has more than half of the seats. At that time he argued that this situation would not affect innocent people. “Religious services, sporting events, trade, study, etc., can continue to be carried out normally. Unless you are a gang member or the authorities consider you a suspect,” he posted on March 27 at 8:51 a.m.

The mass captures began and day after day, the official social networks began to publish images of people, mostly young men, with the intention of showing the success of the operation. However, the opposition and social organizations began to question whether so many criminals were on the streets if in the previous months the government had flaunted the success of the Territorial Control Plan, Bukele's flagship security program. Since June 2019, the PCT has already implemented four phases, the last one called “incursion”, through which the Army and Police would enter the most dangerous colonies to recover the territories.

“Almost three years after the current government was in office, the PCT was unable to prevent an upsurge in homicidal violence, so it resorted to an extreme decision that implies the suspension of fundamental rights for all citizens, without distinction whatsoever.” With these phrases, he criticized the Government by the Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (Fespad), a civil society organization that Bukele today accuses of “defending criminals”.

Since the first day of the emergency regime, Fespad has pointed out that the measure only demonstrates that the Bukele Government's security plan has not generated “sustainable results” and that mass arrests will not solve the underlying problem of violence.

But Bukele turns a deaf ear to these criticisms and has not only stepped up its attacks on Fespad, but against every national and international organization that has asked him to review the seriousness of the measures imposed, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Against that backdrop Anderson, Santos's son, was captured. In less than a week, he was transferred from a juvenile detention center in the department of San Miguel (54 kilometers from where he lives) to the Izalco Prison Centre (168 kilometers). He was taken away even though his family insists that the military were wrong to arrest him, since he has no record or is a member of a criminal structure.

“My son hasn't done anything. He only goes to school and if he is a couple of days away, it is because I take him to the court (to the canal) to help me with a couple of grooves, because as I am already sick, I can't always do it alone. I just want them to let him go, I want help,” Santos said. But shortly thereafter, his son was taken to the imposition of measures hearing and was ordered to be imprisoned while he was being prosecuted for the crime of unlawful groupings. Until 18 April, the boy was still in the Ilobasco Juvenile Detention Centre, 92 kilometers from his family.

As the days of the emergency regime passed, scheduled for a month, cases like Anderson's began to emerge in large numbers on social networks. People began to denounce the arbitrary arrests of family and friends and the media began to pick up the stories. But this mediatization of baseless captures did not cause the Government to reconsider its measures, quite the contrary. Indeed, Bukele took two more steps by reforming the Penal Code and then the Gang Prohibition Act, with the intention of increasing the penalties for members of the famous gangs.

For this reason, minors like Anderson can now receive 12 years in prison if the prosecution manages to prove that they are gang members. With the aggravating factor, according to specialists, that just as the arrests have been massive, so will the trials, which makes due process difficult and that the accused can defend themselves properly.

“It's like a process maquila and people's freedom is at stake here. The problem here is that people who have been arbitrarily detained run the risk because the prosecution cannot prepare the cases, the defenses fail to act, the judge has to see an exorbitant amount of proceedings, and there is no guarantee that each case can be individualized as required by criminal responsibility,” Ruth explained. Eleonora López to La Prensa Gráfica on April 17. On that date, it became known that of the more than 12,000 captured, 5,000 had already been placed in pre-trial detention while the cases were being investigated. López is a lawyer and anti-corruption director of Cristosal, another organization attacked by the Salvadoran government.

On 5 April, Cristosal signed, together with other international organizations, a communiqué in which they stated that the emergency regime “deepens the essentially repressive response of the State and, de facto, has been translated for the territories, particularly the poor and vulnerable, in practices of police abuse”. But because of this approach, they have only received attacks led by Bukele himself, who has even said that gangs are “the armed arm of NGOs and the international community”.

But in addition to arbitrary arrests and serious violations of fundamental rights, the emergency regime has increased social polarization. Today there is a strong gap between the bloc of Salvadorans that unrestricted supports government measures, even if they affect minors without a record, and another that does not oppose security plans as such, but that these affect the rights of citizens even if they are not related to gangs. The most serious thing is that Bukele accuses anyone who criticizes his measures of being just another gang member.

Santos Ramos Jimenez, Anderson's father, is in this second group. He says he does not oppose the measures, but he assures that his son should not be imprisoned because he is not a criminal. “Now the president goes out to say that young people should leave the streets, go home, but even homes come looking for them. It is not to be against authority, but already grabbed they put something that is not,” he said.

*David Bernal is a member of #CONNECTASHub in El Salvador

KEEP READING: