© 2025 AP Photo/Salvador Melendez(Washington, DC) – Police in El Salvador arbitrarily arrested two human rights defenders who were peacefully protesting a mass eviction and have been holding them in pretrial detention since the end of May 2025, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch has reviewed videos and court documents that indicate that the arrests were arbitrary and the charges unfounded. “The evidence we reviewed shows that these community leaders were detained simply for exercising their right to peaceful assembly,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch reviewed multiple videos that show traffic flowing freely on either side of the median shortly prior to the arrests. “Foreign governments and international organizations should step up their condemnations of abuses in El Salvador and press the Bukele administration to drop unsubstantiated charges against human rights defenders,” Goebertus said.