May
Defending Natural Resources
Suchitoto 14 Family Members Hold Government Responsible, May 5 2008
CRIPDES and Suchitoto 14 Family Members Hold Salvadoran Government Responsible for July 2nd, 2007
A week after the Suchitoto 14 were finally cleared of all charges, Salvadoran communities and family members of the Suchitoto 14 are calling on the Salvadoran Government to be held responsible for their nine month wrongful prosecution. In a recent press release Salvadoran organizations say that the Suchitoto court’s decision to throw out all charges against the defendants, and later the Cojutepeque Appeals court’s decision to uphold that verdict, only legitimizes what the defendants and their families claimed all along—that there was never any legal basis for their prosecution.
In the press release, the Association for the Development of El Salvador CRIPDES and the Committee of Family Members of Political Prisoners assert that the Salvadoran Government officials responsible for their wrongful prosecution must be brought to justice and pay for damages. The organizations point to the National Civilian Police and Attorney General for their involvement, but also allege the support of Salvadoran President Tony Saca and Minister of Public Security René Figueroa. The organizations state “The defendants were physically and psychologically tortured by the National Civilian Police, [wrongly] incarcerated for almost one month, and put on probation for the nine months that this process has lasted. It is also important to include the economic damages and mental and psychological suffering of the family members of those detained”.
Lorena Araujo Martinez, President of CRIPDES, stressed that it was not due to effective rule law that the Suchitoto 14 were freed, but rather thanks to national and international pressure for human rights. Through this case, she said, “the famous Special Law against Acts of Terrorism, which the government attempted to apply to our family members and colleagues, has been uncovered as one of the largest violations of human rights that the government has perpetrated against the legitimate protest of social and popular organizations.” According to Martinez, without this pressure they might still be in prison, facing 40 to 60 years for acts of terrorism.
Rosa Centeno of CRIPDES said: “As we thank God for having ended this nightmare, we also want to thank all of the people and institutions on the National and International level who contributed their efforts to achieving definitive liberty for our family members and companions….we want to stress that the government’s repressive action has been defeated through organization and social and popular struggle.”
The organizations are calling on the Salvadoran Government to meet a series of demands for the abuses committed against the Suchitoto 14 over the last 9 months. These include eliminating police records for the Suchitoto 14 dating to their capture, compensation for the economic, mental, and psychological damages inflicted on the defendants and their families, revoking the Salvadoran Anti-terrorism law as unconstitutional, and finally bringing Police officials Rodrigo Avila and Douglas Omar García Funes to trail, along with other members of the Police who were involved in the abuses surrounding July 2nd, 2007.
UPDATE 29/1/20. MORE INFO HERE
