#ElSalvador faces scrutiny for ‘political’ trial of five #EnvironmentalActivists

UN and legal experts have condemned prosecution of #AntiMining campaigners over alleged civil war-era killing

Nina Lakhani
Wed 9 Oct 2024 11.43 EDT

"Five environmental activists who helped secure a historic mining ban in El Salvador are facing life imprisonment for an alleged civil war-era crime, in a case that has been condemned by #UN and legal experts as baseless and politically motivated.

The trial against Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega, who were arrested in January 2023 for the alleged killing of an army informant in 1989, opened on Tuesday in Sensuntepeque, in the department of Cabañas in northern El Salvador.

"The case has proceeded in almost total secrecy amid widespread allegations of legal violations – and repeated calls for the charges to be dismissed from UN experts, and hundreds of international lawyers, academics and rights groups.

"The defendants, who were at the forefront of a 13-year grassroots-led campaign to ban #MetalMining to protect the country’s dwindling #water and #farmland from further #contamination, were arrested amid warnings that President Nayib Bukele was planning to overturn the 2017 historic law.

"The five anti-mining activists had denounced suspicious land sales and mining interests operating in the area when arrested, accused of murder and illicit association over an alleged crime during the 1979-1992 civil war.

"'This case has no legal basis, but we fear that the lack of judicial independence and the Bukele government’s desire to overturn the metal mining ban risks the five #environmental leaders being subjected to a terrible miscarriage of justice,' said Pedro Cabezas, coordinator of the Central American Alliance Against Mining.

"'The five are respected community leaders, and sentencing them to inhumane prison conditions would be a death sentence.'"

[...]

"In what was perceived as a show of support for the activists, #Canada, #Germany, #France, the #UK and the #EU sent representatives to pre-trial hearings. The #Biden administration has remained silent despite 17 members of Congress condemning the arrests and urging the secretary of state, Antony #Blinken, to join calls for the charges to be dismissed."

Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/09/el-salvador-trial-environmental-activists-mining

#EnvironmentalActivists #CriminalizingActivism #WaterIsLife #TrumpedUpCharges #NoMiningWithoutConsent #BigMining #Corruption