Salvadoran government imprisons another who wouldn't be silent

On the morning of February 25, Fidel Zavala  was outside of the office of El Salvador's human rights public advocate (PDDH) to denounce the arbitrary arrests four days earlier of two community activists  from Hacienda La Floresta.  Zavala is spokesperson for a group calling itself the Unit of Defense of Human and Community Rights (UNIDEHC for its initials in Spanish).  UNIDEHC is leading a fight against the expulsion of approximately 250 families from their dwellings at La Floresta.  

Later that same afternoon, Zavala found himself arrested at the offices of UNIDEHC.  And around the same time, twenty other La Floresta community members were also detained.   Many observers are calling their arrests potential reprisals and intimidation by the government for their actions in defense of human rights.    

Zavala worked as a young businessman before being arrested the first time in February 2022 and accused of financial crimes.  He was already in prison under pre-trail detention when the State of Exception began on March 27, 2022.  For 13 months, Zavala would experience the hell of Salvadoran prisons under Bukele's hard-line regime.

In March 2024, however, a Salvadoran court absolved Zavala from the charges he was facing and ordered his freedom. After walking out from behind prison walls, Zavala set out on a path of direct confrontation with the Bukele prison system.  

On July 17, 2024, Zavala filed a complaint with prosecutors against the director-general of the Bureau of Prisons, Osiris Luna, and the directors of the prisons located in Cutumay Camones in Santa Ana and Mariona for arbitrary acts, breach of official duties, bribery, and torture.  He went public with descriptions in the press of the things he had witnessed in Salvadoran prisons during the State of Exception.  He described beatings, torture, mistreatment, and counting the body bags of those who died in prison. 

You can watch Zavala's narrative with English subtitles of the things he witnessed and experienced in the prisons of Bukele's State of Exception:

You can also view his interview with CNN Español.

As he was being arrested last week, Zalava told onlookers that the government was inventing charges in order to shut him up.  Zalava is now back in the hands of the government he has accused of abuses and torture.

On the day of Zavala's re-arrest, the offices of UNIDEHC were raided along with Zavala's house and the house of an  attorney for UNIDEHC, Ivania Cruz.  In total, the government arrested 20 community members from the community of La Floresta, including one woman who is pregnant.

The problems at La Floresta involve the forced expulsion of a long-existing settlement of families living in extreme poverty.  Persons claiming to be the owners of the property arrived with earth moving equipment telling the inhabitants they needed to leave and began tearing down their humble dwellings.  The residents, however, assert that they had lived on the abandoned land for twelve years or more, and that under Salvadoran law their uninterrupted possession for 10 years gave them the right to continue there. (In the US this is referred to as "adverse possession").  The property owners, who apparently want to put up a residential development on the land, did not have a judicial order authorizing them to dislodge the inhabitants from the land.

A video from UNIDEHC shows the remnants of humble dwellings at La Floresta after the  inhabitants were dislodged.

📌#CasoLaFloresta Una muestra de las casas deshabitadas de la Comunidad La Floresta, aquí se muestra además el nivel de pobreza de las personas.

📌A nivel nacional existe un desplazamiento forzoso, sucede en las comunidades y también con los comerciantes del Centro Histórico.… pic.twitter.com/QyYwijEjUu

— UNIDEHC EL SALVADOR (@Unidehc) March 2, 2025

The government's charges accuse the community activists and Zalava of real estate fraud and operating an illegal organization.  

Other Salvadoran advocates denounced the arrests:

“We believe that this action by the Attorney General's Office and the de facto government of Bukele in San Juan Opico is nothing more than an action that adds to the entire logic of political persecution promoted by the government, which also has the intention of intimidating and trying to silence the voices of those who are at the forefront of denouncing the serious democratic and political setbacks that our country is now suffering,” said Marisela Ramírez, a member of the BRP leadership team.

A video of a press conference calling for release of Zalava and the activists, and denouncing the government's use of the State of Exception to silence its critics is here.  The human rights organization Cristosal issued a statement that the arrest suggests a possible motivation of reprisals and intimidation for his work and the work of UNIDEHC in defense of human rights and accompanying the victims.

A group of 52 international and Salvadoran organizations signed a letter calling for Zalava's release.  Meanwhile government allies are making an all out campaign to smear Zalava on social media, accusing him of crimes for which a court has already ruled him not guilty.