The report, published on Wednesday, includes interviews with 15 defence lawyers who said their clients were denied basic due process rights, including restricted access to case files and the ability to communicate privately with counsel. In many cases, the only evidence linking defendants to gangs came from one of two anonymous witnesses who received immunity from prosecution.
“El Salvador’s mass trials are a mockery of justice,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement. “These hearings are designed to produce guilty verdicts, not to weigh evidence under due process.”
The mass trials are part of President Nayib Bukele’s sweeping security crackdown, launched after a state of emergency was declared in March 2022 in response to a surge in organised crime. More than 93,000 people, including over 3,000 children, have been detained under the emergency order, which has been renewed multiple times. An estimated 120,000 people are currently imprisoned in El Salvador, about 2 percent of the population – one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.
The Salvadoran government has defended the trials as necessary to dismantle gangs at scale. Bukele has acknowledged that innocent people have been swept up, saying in 2024 that some 8,000 arrested people were later released. “We are going to free 100 percent of the innocent people,” he pledged at the time, arguing no system was perfect.
HRW noted that many convictions rely on the vague charge of being a “collaborator” with gangs. In one trial reviewed by the group, more than 120 people were convicted of unlawful association and sentenced to 30 or 45 years in prison; none were acquitted.