El Salvador: HR Commission Demands Protocol Against Torture

The Government of El Salvador was asked on Tuesday to ratify the Optional Protocol of the Convention against Torture as a sign of commitment against that violation of human rights.

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In a recent press conference, the Human Rights Working Commission for Historical Memory of El Salvador regretted that the country is the only nation in the region that has not signed the above-mentioned international legal instrument.

Such a protocol forbids the maltreatment by State agents of any person. It forces it to take adequate measures to prevent cruel treatment or inhumane or degrading sentences under its jurisdiction.

David Ortiz, the legal collaborator with the Law Application Studies Foundation (LASF), warned that this problem should be seriously considered and approached from the education.

'We have to educate ourselves, (the protocol) speaks, for example, of curricular changes in teaching about torture,' pointed out Ortiz, who also stood for devices to monitor such maltreatment in the country.

According to the said Commission, during the armed conflict (1980-1992), thousands of cases of torture were registered, and the Salvadoran State did not take any measures of reparation for the victims, despite the constitutional endorsement.

'El Salvador has over 30,000 prisoners and does not know exactly what is happening inside those prisons with the inmates,' Miguel Montenegro, director of the Human Rights National Commission, warned.