Human rights commission calls on El Salvador to protect 3 deported men it imprisoned

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on the government of El Salvador to protect three Salvadoran men deported by the United States in a decision published Tuesday that said they had been held without the ability to communicate with their lawyers or relatives since arriving.

The Salvadoran government said in the case that William Alexander Martínez Ruano, 21, and José Osmín Santos Robles, 41, where being held in a prison in Santa Ana and the third, Brandon Bladimir Sigarán Cruz, 22, who the government said was an active member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, had been held in the country’s new gang prison since March.

This has been a generalized problem for the nearly 90,000 people arrested under emergency powers granted to President Nayib Bukele in March 2022, to fight the country’s powerful street gangs.

Relatives and a lawyer filed habeas corpus petitions in El Salvador on behalf of the men, and the nongovernmental Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy requested the protective measures from the human rights commission.

The commission, which is an arm of the regional Organization of American States, said it decided to grant the request because of a “serious risk to their rights to live and personal well being.” The commission grants such protections in cases to prevent irreparable harm.

El Salvador responded to the commission about the status of the men, but the commission said the government did not deny the men were being held incommunicado despite a specific request that it provide information about the possibility of visits with their relatives and lawyers. The country is supposed to follow the commission’s instructions and report back, but El Salvador gave no indication of being willing to bend to the demands.

The commission noted that it had granted protective measures in September to two Salvadoran lawyers, Ruth López and Enrique Anaya, critics of the government who were arrested and held without contact.

Lawyer Jayme Magaña of the Wings for Freedom movement, who is not representing any of those arrested, said that people being held in El Salvador under the ongoing state of emergency generally do not have contact with relatives or their lawyers. “It is something that (the commission) has been saying since the start of the state of emergency,” which began in March 2022, he said.

El Salvador’s government told the commission that it should avoid being used by people with criminal histories.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration sent more than 250 Venezuelan men it accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang to be imprisoned in El Salvador. In July, they were released to Venezuela in exchange for the release of 10 Americans held by Venezuela.