El Salvador Perspectives

LDM church San Salvador Throughout El Salvador one will find churches of Luz del Mundo ("LDM" -- Light of the World). That faith group, which has its origins in Mexico has started to build a major religious campus and residential development in El Salvador. It is a church which has made a practice of being close to persons in power throughout the world. In El Salvador, that has meant being close to Nayib Bukele, the FMLN, Nuevas Ideas and other political figures. But the high leader of LDM has now been sentenced to 16 years in prison in the US for sexual assaults on minor girls, and whether LDM's plans in El Salvador will come to fruition is yet to be seen. Luz Del Mundo is an unaffiliated Christian church, centered around the figure of a single man, the “Apostle of Jesus Christ”. The first Apostle in LDM was its founder Aarón Joaquín, and he was succeeded by his son Samuel Joaquín Flores, and then by grandson Naasón Joaquín García, the current Apostle. The he...

Earlier this week, El Salvador's environmental groups came together for the 22nd annual Caminata Ecológica or "Environment March".   They walked through the streets of the capital San Salvador under the theme Exigimos justicia ambiental para el cuido de nuestra casa común --  "We demand environmental justice for the care of our common home."  The march began at Cuscatlan Park in the center of San Salvador and proceeded towards the presidential palace, although barricades and riot police stopped the march short of the palace.  March leaders were not greeted by anyone from the executive branch, but could only deliver their letter at the correspondence window. ¡Exigimos Justicia Ambiental para el cuidado de nuestra casa común! @SomosAguaES fue parte de la XXII Caminata Ecológica, en el marco del Día Mundial del Medio Ambiente, para exigir el respeto de los derechos ambientales, nuestros bienes naturales y territorios. pic.twitter.com/r1p9jmDwQb — Alianza Nacion...

During his June 1 report to the nation on his first three years as president, Nayib Bukele spent a significant amount of time railing against his critics in the human rights community, both domestic and international.  Given the amount of attention Bukele gave to these human rights defenders, it makes sense to collect in one place the series of reports they have issued which catalogue the human rights abuses committed in the name of Bukele's current war against gangs.  Shortly after the State of Exception was enacted on March 27, a coalition of 70 human rights and civil society groups issued a  statement  warning about the possibility of "mass arrests of young people in vulnerable situations who are not subject to judicial control, indiscriminate searches of the population living in poverty, and prolonged periods of isolation and detention of persons deprived of liberty, as well as undue restrictions on their rights to food and health." At the conclusion of the...