El Salvador: Criminal System Used as a Weapon to Punish Human Rights Defenders
Amnesty International warns that the state of exceptionopens in a new tab extended by the government and reforms to the penal system have undermined the rule of law in El Salvador.
This is due to the consolidation of a repressive apparatus that, instead of impartially delivering justice, is used as a weapon to criminalize human rights defenders and to silence critical voices, exposing them to a prison regime that threatens their personal integrity and their lives.
More than three years after it began, the state of exception, which has already been extended 42 consecutive times, has established a model that gives the appearance of legality to mass detention without evidence, the suspension of judicial guarantees and the imposition of disproportionate terms of administrative detention.
