Salvadorean grass roots organization MOVIR supports victims of arbitrary detention under the country’s State of Exception. A civil society organization rather than an NGO, it is an important means of resistance to a regime which aims to close off civic space.
On 20 May, 2025 in San Salvador, a group of mothers, aunts and grandmothers of those arbitrarily imprisoned under the State of Exception in El Salvador gathered to celebrate the Dia de Las Madres (Mother’s Day) at an event organised by the social movement MOVIR Movimiento de Víctimas del Régimen.
Although their sons, grandsons and loved ones were notably absent at the event, the atmosphere in the room was relaxed: the women chatted to one another while an organizer handed out sandwiches and coffee to attendees. The event opened with a performance by a member of El Salvador’s national choir, dazzling in a glittery pink dress. The event, Samuel Ramirez informed me, is designed to be a communal gathering to ‘change the dynamic’ from MOVIR’s usual activities. The event, Samuel Ramirez informed me, is designed to be a relaxed, communal gathering to ‘change the dynamic’ from MOVIR’s usual activities.
Ramirez is one of the founding members of MOVIR. Since the start of the State of Exception in El Salvador in March 2022, President Nayib Bukele has authorized systematic human rights violations and suffocated civic space.
According to Amnesty International, over 83,000 people were detained in the first 1,000 days of the State of Exception, which started on 27 March 2022. ‘What the government calls ‘peace’, says Amnesty’s Ana Piquer, ‘is in fact a mirage that pretends to conceal a repressive system, a structure of control and oppression that abuses its power and disregards the rights of those who were already invisible—people living in poverty, under state stigma, and marginalization—all in the name of a supposed security defined in a very narrow way.’
In the absence of any state or judicial recourse, MOVIR emerged as a direct response to the detentions and other arbitrary actions which have occurred during this period.
‘We never imagined that a movement like MOVIR would exist … When the State of Emergency began, there were raids, mass arrests, and people were seeking help from the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, which is the state institution that should be defending the rights of these people—and it doesn’t do its job. People went to the Attorney General’s Office as well, where they found no effective support for the victims. Yes, it does offer some help, but in a very mediocre way. There is no service that meets the level of need. Other organizations were completely overwhelmed with pleas for help for victims, so they couldn’t keep up. At that point, there was no other option but for the victims themselves to organize.’
MOVIR’s work consists mainly of issuing public denunciations of arbitrary arrests, organizing protests, and supporting victims – for instance by accompanying detainees’ friends and family to petition the Human Rights Ombudsman and Office of the Attorney General.
‘The advantage of MOVIR is that our fight is to defend human rights. Yes. We are not controlled by any political party, organisation or person. Yes. The violation of human rights drives us. The anguish of people who do not know what to do. Yes. This is our motivation. Nothing more.’
Friends and family members of those who have been detained use social media channels, including X, Tiktok, and Instagram to contact MOVIR and provide evidence – – for instance proof of work and absence of criminal record – that the person detained is innocent.
’When I see that they have formal jobs, with a set schedule, it’s hard for me to believe they had time to be involved in gangs,’ says Ramirez.
MOVIR makes public denunciations on the same social media channels – it has over 81,000 followers on Facebook and a growing following on Tiktok with both national and international reach. It uses WhatsApp to maintain contact with thousands of Salvadoreans across the country to keep them updated.
Ramirez commented, ‘It’s a people… we are a power now. And I think this is already reaching the regime.’
As a result, some people falsely detained under the State of Exception have been released. ‘The regime responds more to pressure on social media than to any sense of conscience. We’ve forced Bukele to release people purely through public denunciation’.
MOVIR has been on the receiving end of government repression. While Ramirez remains in El Salvador, one of his colleagues has been forced to flee to Costa Rica. MOVIR has also faced ‘defamations, accusations, attacks on all sides’, including harassment on social media and attempts to capture people during protest events.
The government’s verbal attacks on civil society organizations are also threatening their work: ‘Although we are here to defend rights, the government accuse us of defending gang members… [In El Salvador] at present,’ Ramirez explains, ‘anyone who is linked with the gangs is automatically considered a criminal.’
The Dia de Las Madres event provided a much-needed respite to the women who have lost loved ones to the regime, although speakers described their personal experience of seeing family members and partners arbitrarily detained. MOVIR’s work may become increasingly difficult, but Ramirez was keen to assure me that they will continue.
MOVIR’s campaigns highlight the role of grassroot social movements – differentiated from NGOs by their lack of formal organisation and funding and their use of protests alongside more formal channels of denunciation – in defending shrinking civic space in the nation. We share the responsibility to promote and protect such movements, particularly as civil society is disregarded and criminalized in Latin America and across the globe.
