#WHRDAlert EL SALVADOR / Officials of Bukele government foster smear campaigns and attacks in social networks

Bertha Deleón

Activity
Attorney for the defense of human rights and the rights of women

Attacks experienced
Attacks in social networks, misogyny, hate speech, harassment, smear campaign.

THE FACTS – On March 31, the Secretary of Labor Rolando Castro attacked human rights defender and attorney Bertha María Deleón with slander and misogynous insults on his Twitter account.

These attacks were previously incited on the Twitter account of Walter Araujo, who is close to the New Ideas Party and President Nayib Bukele. Araujo disparaged and slandered the defender, questioning and denigrating her “sexual morality,” persecuting her, and delving into both her professional work and private life in order to attack and defame her.

For several months Araujo has waged a smear campaign against defender Bertha Deleón. His followers, who are also sympathizers of the President and the New Ideas Party, have kept up the attacks and hate speech on Twitter.

We of the Salvadoran Network of Women Defenders and IM-Defensoras emphatically condemn these attacks and express our deep concern over their continuation in social networks, and we are extremely concerned about the gender violence directed against Bertha De León.

We demand that President Nayib Bukele take responsibility for immediately ending these attacks and that he sanction his Labor Secretary and any other Cabinet official who has engaged in gender violence

We demand that the Salvadoran Institute for the Development of Women (ISDEMU) take a stand against the violence directed at Berta Deleón and that the Attorney General of El Salvador take the initiative to investigate these attacks against the attorney, based on Article 55 of the Law for a Life Free from Violence (LEIV).

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