AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

esult in human rights violations, according to
media reports.
EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE AND
EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS
Members of the security forces were accused
of human rights violations during operations
to combat organized crime. In April, the
Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman
reported that both the police and the military
had used excessive force and committed
extrajudicial killings while carrying out two
security operations in 2015. The
Ombudsman was also reported in the press
as stating that other similar cases were under
investigation.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Threats to women’s rights persisted. The total
ban on abortion remained in place even for
cases of rape or where there is a risk to the
life of the woman.
In May, María Teresa Rivera was released
after spending four years in prison, convicted
of aggravated homicide after having a
miscarriage. The judge released María Teresa
Rivera after reviewing her sentence and ruled
that there was insufficient evidence to
support the charges against her. 1 More than
20 women remained in prison serving lengthy
sentences after suffering pregnancy-related
complications or obstetric emergencies.
In July, a new proposal filed by a group of
parliamentarians from the main opposition
party, the Nationalist Republican Alliance
(ARENA), sought to increase prison terms
from a maximum of eight years to up to a
maximum of 50 years for having an abortion.
The reform had not been approved by the
end of the year. 2
In October, parliamentarians belonging to
the ruling Farabundo Martί National
Liberation Front (FMLN) put forward a
proposal to decriminalize abortion in four
circumstances, including when a woman’s
life is at risk or when the pregnancy is a
consequence of rape. The proposal remained
pending at the end of the year.
There were high levels of gender-based
violence. In the period January to July, 338
women were killed; the equivalent figure for
2015 was 249, according to official records.
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS
In August, human rights defender Sonia
Sánchez Pérez was acquitted of all charges.
Her trial resulted from a lawsuit filed by a
private company accusing her of slander and
defamation because of her statements about
the environmental impact of the company’s
infrastructure project on her community. She
had also denounced threats against her by
private security personnel. The company filed
an appeal against the decision.
MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS
Many of those who sought to leave the
country were fleeing the effects of the
increasing control of criminal gangs over
areas of the country and the impact this
had on the rights to life, physical integrity,
education and freedom of movement of
local populations.
LGBTI people were frequently targeted for
abuse, intimidation and violence because of
their sexual orientation and/or their gender
identity. In particular, transgender women,
who often face greater obstacles in accessing
justice because of discrimination, were
subjected to violence and extortion by gangs.
Unable to seek protection or justice, some
LGBTI people fled the country as the only
way to escape the violence.
Deportations of Salvadorans, especially
from Mexico, increased. However, El Salvador
did not put in place an effective protocol or
mechanism to identify and protect those who
were forcibly returned to the communities
from which they had fled. 3
IMPUNITY
El Salvador acceded to the Rome Statute of
the International Criminal Court in March.
In June, a monitoring compliance hearing
relating to two cases of enforced
disappearance committed during the armed
conflict took place before the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights. In September, the
Court rendered a judgment in one of the
cases, Contreras et al v El Salvador, and
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