HRW: Mass Trials in El Salvador Violate Defendants' Rights
Al Jazeera Staff
Human Rights Watch has documented widespread violations in El Salvador's mass trials, where hundreds of defendants can be tried at once and defense lawyers are denied access to case files and private contact with clients. The report comes as President Nayib Bukele's state of emergency has led to more than 93,000 detentions since 2022.
Human Rights Watch has published a report documenting widespread violations in El Salvador's mass trial system, under which hundreds of people can be tried and convicted in a single hearing.
According to the report released Wednesday, HRW reviewed four indictments involving more than 600 defendants and one court ruling covering more than 120 people. The report also drew on interviews with 15 defense lawyers, who said their clients were denied the right to a fair trial and were therefore unable to mount an adequate defense in court.
HRW concluded that defendants in these mass trials face vaguely defined charges, weak evidence and flawed procedures. In some cases, defense lawyers were restricted from viewing their clients' case files and were barred from communicating privately with the accused.
"El Salvador's mass trials are a mockery of justice," Juanita Goebertus, HRW's Americas director, said in a statement. "These hearings are designed to produce guilty verdicts, not to weigh evidence in accordance with due process."
The mass trials are part of President Nayib Bukele's sweeping security crackdown, launched in response to rising organized crime in the Central American country.
Bukele first declared a state of emergency in March 2022 to tackle a wave of crime, suspending some civil liberties to grant law enforcement additional powers. The measures included mass arrests. The following year, El Salvador's legislature passed a bill paving the way for mass trials, allowing courts to handle cases involving hundreds of individual defendants.
El Salvador's government defends the trials as necessary to dismantle gangs, given the scale of crime in the country. But critics have repeatedly warned that such tactics violate fundamental human rights and lead to unlawful detentions.
Bukele himself has acknowledged that innocent people were caught up in his crackdown. In 2024, he said about 8,000 people who had been arrested were later released. "We will release 100 percent of the innocent," he pledged at the time, arguing that no system is perfect.
More than 93,000 people, including over 3,000 children, have been detained under El Salvador's state of emergency, which has been extended repeatedly since 2022. An estimated 120,000 people are currently imprisoned in El Salvador, equal to roughly 2 percent of the country's population. That makes it one of the countries with the highest incarceration rates in the world.
HRW noted that many verdicts in the mass trials rest on accusations that defendants were "collaborators" with gangs, a vaguely defined legal standard. In one trial reviewed by the group, more than 120 people were convicted of unlawful association and sentenced to between 30 and 45 years in prison. HRW said none were acquitted.
According to HRW, for most prisoners convicted on such charges, the only evidence linking them to a gang was testimony from one of two anonymous witnesses who were granted immunity from prosecution. "The prosecutor says a person is a gang member because a police officer says so," one unidentified lawyer told HRW. "The prosecutor relies on the police report, and the police report relies on unspecified official intelligence or public rumor."
The oversight of the mass trials also raises questions. The cases go before the Court Against Organized Crime, a court system overseen by El Salvador's Supreme Court that critics accuse of lacking transparency. The identities of the court's judges are not disclosed, even to lawyers involved in the proceedings.
Despite human rights concerns in the country, Bukele's government has maintained relatively high approval ratings in public opinion polls. Bukele has cited those figures as evidence of public support for his anti-crime measures.
In April, Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado also defended a mass trial of nearly 500 people accused of belonging to the MS-13 gang, saying in a social media post that the gang had operated systematically for years, causing "fear and mourning for Salvadoran families."
El Salvador's government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In its report, HRW called for an independent review of cases brought under the state of emergency. The group also demanded the release of detainees held without credible evidence.
