Human Rights Watch has released a report reviewing four indictments covering more than 600 defendants and a single court ruling involving over 120 people, all processed through El Salvador's mass trial system. The findings are structurally damning: vaguely defined charges, anonymous witnesses granted immunity, defence lawyers barred from case files, and judges whose identities remain secret. In the single ruling reviewed, every one of the 120-plus defendants was convicted and sentenced to 30 or 45 years. Zero acquittals. The mass trials are the judicial arm of President Nayib Bukele's state of emergency, declared in March 2022 and renewed continuously since. More than 93,000 people have been detained under the order, including over 3,000 children. An estimated 120,000 people are currently imprisoned — roughly 2 percent of El Salvador's population, giving the country one of the highest incarceration rates on Earth. The legal architecture is worth examining closely. El Salvador's Congress passed legislation in 2023 specifically enabling trials of hundreds of defendants simultaneously. Cases are heard before Tribunals Against Organized Crime, overseen by the Supreme Court, whose judges operate anonymously. The primary charge — 'collaboration' with gangs — requires no specific evidence of criminal acts. As one defence lawyer told HRW: 'Prosecutors say a person is a gang member because a police officer says so. The police report relies on unspecified official intelligence or public rumours.' The evidentiary standard is circular by design. For the vast majority of convictions, the only evidence linking a defendant to a gang was a statement from one of two anonymous witnesses who had received immunity from prosecution. Defence lawyers report being restricted from viewing case files and from communicating privately with their clients. When 15 defence lawyers independently describe the same structural barriers, the pattern is systemic, not incidental. Bukele himself has acknowledged collateral damage, stating in 2024 that approximately 8,000 detained people were later released. His framing — 'no system is perfect' — treats wrongful imprisonment of thousands as acceptable error rate in pursuit of security. Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado defended a mass trial of nearly 500 alleged MS-13 members in April, citing the gang's years of systematic violence. The political economy here is revealing. Bukele maintains high domestic approval ratings, which he cites as democratic legitimacy for the crackdown. The trade being offered to the Salvadoran public is explicit: surrender due process protections in exchange for reduced street violence. For now, the public appears willing. The question is what happens when the emergency machinery, built to target gangs, is available for any purpose the state chooses. HRW has called for independent case reviews and the release of people detained without credible evidence. The Salvadoran government did not respond to requests for comment. The structural reality is that a parallel judicial system now exists — secret judges, anonymous witnesses, mass proceedings, near-universal conviction rates — and it has been normalized through repetition and legislative ratification.
