International organizations call on Inter-American Human Rights Commission to issue precautionary measures for Salvadoran human rights defender Fidel Zavala following his arrest, express concern about criminalization of community organizing

San Salvador, March 13, 2025.  With just days remaining before a likely indictment hearing, over 170 human rights, faith, labor and solidarity organizations from 23 countries sent a letter urging the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to take up a request for precautionary measures for Fidel Zavala, human rights defender and spokesperson for the Human and Community Rights Defense Unit (UNIDEHC) in El Salvador, and advocate for his immediate release given the danger he could face if transferred to prison to await trial.

The organizations expressed concern for possible retaliation against Zavala whose eyewitness reports of abuse and torture in two of El Salvador’s prisons served as the basis for a legal complaint against El Salvador’s Director of Prisons, Osiris Luna, and the directors of the Mariona and Santa Ana prisons that Zavala presented to El Salvador’s Attorney General in 2024 with the accompaniment of UNIDEHC. Zavala spent thirteen months in pretrial detention on business-related charges before being declared innocent on March 17, 2023.

On February 25, 2025 Zavala was arrested along with two community leaders from La Floresta, a community in San Juan Opico that has been pursuing legal avenues to remain on the land where they have lived for over a decade. Earlier that day, Zavala had accompanied the leaders to the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsperson to denounce the arbitrary arrest of two elected leaders of the community board on February 9. Twenty more community members were subsequently arrested.

Zavala and members of the community now face charges of belonging to an “illicit group,” the same accusation that has been used to arrest tens of thousands without warrants for alleged ties to gangs under the State of Exception.

Police also raided the office of UNIDEHC and the home of one of UNIDEHC’s attorneys, Ivania Cruz. The Attorney General’s Office has characterized the organization as an “illicit association” in their public communications. Attorneys with the grassroots human rights defense group represent several high-profile political prisoners as well as land defenders and victims of arbitrary arrest.

Taken together, the groups wrote, “these actions represent an escalation of persecution against human rights defenders and are a threat to communities and groups who exercise their right to organize and to freedom of association in El Salvador.” Human rights organizations have documented torture, abuse, malnourishment, and medical neglect in El Salvador’s prisons, as well as the deaths of over 370 people while in custody since the state of emergency was implemented in March 2022. In February, during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Bukele offered to jail people convicted of crimes from the United States, including U.S. citizens and immigrants whom the Trump administration seeks to deport.

Vicki Gass, Executive Director, Latin America Working Group:“We know that the members of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission have done an investigation and have spoken out clearly about the violence that thousands of Salvadorans face in the prisons under the state of emergency, including many people with no connection to gangs. Now, more than 100 organizations from different countries in the hemisphere have approached this body to seek urgent action to protect the life and physical safety of Fidel Zavala.

Fidel is a prominent human rights defender who has been persecuted and unjustly jailed. He denounced abuses in the prisons that make clear that El Salvador is not a model and that no country should consider sending people there in light of Fidel’s denunciations and the widespread documentation of arbitrary detentions, violations of due process, torture and the death of over 370 people in the prisons during the state of emergency.

The Salvadoran people deserve a government that respects international human rights standards and Salvadoran authorities should grant alternative measures given the risk that Zavala could face for the denunciations he has made if he is transferred to prison.”

Attorney José Luis Fuentes, member of the National Lawyers Guild Mesoamerica Committee: “These are dark days for human rights defenders in El Salvador. We should all be alert and take action. Fidel Zavala is an example of courage for denouncing the attacks against humanity that he witnessed within the prisons in El Salvador. Government authorities have persisted in their
harassment, threats and arbitrary detention among other attempts to silence Fidel for his public denunciations. We call on the international community to denounce the violation of fundamental rights in El Salvador and we reiterate our call to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to take necessary and urgent measures to guarantee the safety and well being of Fidel Zavala.”

Nación Salvadoreña en el Exterior “We condemn the arrest of Fidel Zavala and demand his immediate release because we fear he
could be tortured or even killed in Bukele’s prisons. He has gone public with the torture and deaths he observed in the prisons, which is why we fear for his life. We furthermore denounce the persecution against and criminalization of all human rights organizations in order to prevent them from defending the human rights of those with the greatest need in El Salvador.”

Jose M Canales, Doctors for Global Health-Mexico: “Those of us from the 70s and 80s who were active in social movements to defend our rights,struggled again st forced disappearances, political persecution, physical and psychological torture, and being jailed for your way of thinking and being. Today, we continue to struggle against authoritarian governments. That’s why we denounce the current government of El Salvador for not respecting the Peace Accords signed on January 16, 1992, which were signed to end the war, and for currently imposing a state of emergency, abolishing civil rights and jailing social leaders who criticize the government. We call for the immediate release of Fidel Zavala and other detained activists who defend community life.”