A response to the arrest of Salvadoran human rights activist Fidel Zavala

Date: 2025 March 21

On Tuesday 26 February, while accompanying land rights leaders from the La Floresta community in El Salvador, Fidel Zavala was arrested and accused of belonging to illegal associations and unlawfully practising as a lawyer. According to La Prensa Gráfica, Zavala’s retrial for a charge he had already been acquitted of in 2024 began on March 17.

On Monday, lawyer Ivania Cruz, representative of the civil organisation Unidad para la Defensa de Derechos Humanos y Comunitarios (UNIDEHC; Unit for the Defence of Human and Community Rights), publicly denounced the irregularities in the judicial process against Zavala, who is the organisation's spokesperson.

Statement from the Basque delegation in El Salvador

The Basque delegation that travelled to El Salvador in late January to monitor the situation of individuals and groups who have participated in NARE (the Basque Programme for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders) issued a statement on 7 March in response to this arrest.

In the statement, the delegation made the following demands to the Salvadoran authorities:

That the request for precautionary measures in Fidel Zavala’s favour be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
That he is granted all the legal guarantees to ensure a just and proper judicial process.
That his family are kept informed of his situation and, where appropriate and legally permissible, allowed to visit him.
That special attention is given to his physical integrity, with friends and family fearing for his life and suspecting that this detention may be a retaliation against the public complaints he made about the Salvadoran prison system in 2024.

This delegation is made up of the Directorate of Human Rights and Victim Support of the Basque Government, the Basque Agency for Cooperation and Solidarity (eLankidetza), the Basque Parliament and the Basque human rights and cooperation organisations Paz y Solidaridad Euskadi, Asociación de Cooperación por la Paz (ACPP-BLB) and Zehar-Errefuxiatuekin, in addition to the Coordinator of Basque NGOs.

You can read the full statement here.