14
Feb
Feb
Rights for Youth and Women
“In El Salvador Being Young and Organized is a Crime”
An Interview with Emerson Marroquín
At 19 years old, Emerson is one of the eight young leaders arrested in the middle of the night on October 12th, 2012 in the communities of El Progreso 3 and Santa Cecilia, thrown in jail and accused of illicit association under the Law Against Organized and Complex Crimes.
Upon meeting sweet, shy Emerson, it is difficult to imagine him as a member of a gang. On February 6th, Estela Garcia of Sister Cities sat down with Emerson so he could recount his experience as a young person growing up in San Salvador and his experience of being unjustly incarcerated.
What do you do for work and what do you do in your community?
I sell clothes in the Sacred Heart Market. The woman I work for wrote me a proof of employment letter as one of the documents proving I am not in a gang. I am also going to be part of a new community project supported by ALBA to create vegetable gardens where people who are unemployed will work. I’m also on the soccer team. I always participate in community activities, making signs and helping with the logistical details for events and meetings.
Can you tell us what your days in jail were like?
I was in cell number nine. There were four of us in our group. It was one of the smallest cells, maybe 10 feet by 10 feet. These cells are made for a maximum of 15 people, but there were 22 of us in there, there wasn’t hardly enough room for all of us. We had to sleep side by side, and if we moved and bumped into each other, the other prisoners would hit us in the chest. And they didn’t hit like they sometimes do with an open palm, they hit us with closed fists.
I would wake up to bathe at 2am in the morning, because the older inmates had priority and bathed at 7am. And if you show up to bathe at that hour they beat you up. They beat me up twice, but you learn little by little how the whole system works in that dungeon.
The bathroom was really filthy, and there was green mold on the floor because of the humidity. If you didn’t put sandals on your feet would be covered in fungus.
Our families brought us food every day. If they couldn’t bring us anything they would pay a nearby cafeteria to bring us some food but the cafeterias would bring us food that had gone bad, food that was made two or more days prior.
There are some inmates who people call “Russians”. “Russians” don’t have families, they don’t have anybody who brings them food. Those of us who received food left a little to give them. If we didn’t share with them the other prisoners hit us.
During the day we participated in religious services because there were several evangelical who gave as many as seven services a day.
The other thing I did was think, most of all about my family and my girlfriend. I also put myself to work making hammocks out of plastic bags, both to pass the time and to have somewhere to sleep. We went to sleep early at night, like at 6pm so the days would pass as quickly as possible.
Did you ever get sick? What happens in the jail if you get sick?
I only got a minor fungus, but my brother, Marvin Marroquín, got a fungus on his whole body because of the heat and humidity. We were lucky, because after the human rights people [from the Human Rights Ombudsman’s office] came to visit us and asked how we were doing, in a matter of a few days the people from the local health clinic came. People from our community were really pressuring for that to happen. There were other prisoners who weren’t as lucky. There was another prisoner who had problems with his heart and he fainted, but the police wouldn’t take him to the nurse because they said he was faking. But he really was sick because when the people from the health clinic visited, they said he had serious problems with his heart.
Were you allowed to receive visitors?
Only for three minutes once a week, but the truth is that it was less than three minutes, at most one or two. The best visit we had was from Mirna Perla [ex-Magistrate of the Supreme Court]. Dr. Perla’s visit gave us a lot of hope that the case would be resolved soon.
What was the hardest part for you?
Spending the Christmas and New Year’s holidays incarcerated. Christmas day was the hardest; I cried that day. For New Year’s Day I went to sleep early in order to not spend that day the same way.
The hardest thing is that they take you far from your family.
Did you ever lose hope?
No, because an innocent person has nothing to fear. I knew that sooner or later I would be free because there was no evidence against us.
Sometimes it was hard, because there were other young people in the jail who had been there for six months or more, held for similar accusations. But our families told us not to worry because we weren’t alone and there was lots of support from our community, from MPR-12, from Mirna Perla, and from international organizations.
Was this the first time you were in jail?
It was my first time under the specialized system. Before, they took me and some other young people from the community and accused us of being members of gangs, but they let us go after 6 days because of lack of proof. This time we thought it would be the same, but as the days went by we realized that it wouldn’t be the same and we became very worried.
The thing is that the real crime is being young. The police think that we’re gang members because we’re young and we’re poor.
How do you feel now that you’re out of jail? What plans do you have now?
I’m constantly afraid of the police. When I go to my house and see that there’s police presence in the streets, I start to panic.
I plan to work, to continue organizing and participate in the community vegetable garden project we have started to help raise funds for the community.
Do you have any message for the organizations that supported you during this ordeal?
Thank you for the support. We wish the best for all of you. It is extremely important that you continue your work around this issue, because there are lots of young people who are unjustly incarcerated, not just us. Although this was a bad experience, we are committed to continue moving forward!
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