Author: wjacobr

Visual artist, poet, novelist, activist & Street Medic, living in North. Penn Name: Jacob Russell My blog is a confluence of art, writing, politics. my Art portfolio: Art-by-Willard.com

CECOT share awareness

From Suzy Subways on Facebook
No sunlight, no outdoor time, no beds or cots, no letters or phone calls, no books, no outside medical care, no charges or trial, no hope for release. Beatings and torture as the rule. Sleeping on concrete next to the dead. Does it really matter which of these people are innocent? Does anyone belong here?

Zann Zsuzsannika is with Antonia Eden Dana.

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Okay, let’s get into Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), the prison in El Salvador where the Trump admin is sending men that they believe are “in gangs”, with no due process.

I’d like to start by saying, we found out yesterday that of the 238 men that Trump has sent to CECOT, 179 of the men have NO criminal record, here or abroad. Please let that register before you continue reading. No. Criminal. Record. Whatsoever. 75% have clearer backgrounds than a lot of the people you know. The names of possibly innocent men are towards the bottom of this post.

I’m going to try to break this down in easy to understand sections. Please forgive me if I’m repetitive.

About CECOT

+ Designed and completed in 2023 in response to overcrowding in other El Salvador prisons.

+ Built to house up to 40,000 inmates.

+ For the “worst of the worst” gang members.

+ Its aim is to be a PERMANENT solution, no rehabilitation, no return to society. The justice minister bluntly stated that prisoners at CECOT will “never return to their communities.”

+ 8 pavilions with 256 cells.

+ Cells house 80 – 100 men, sometimes more. 100 square meters in size.

+ 19 guard towers, multiple layers of fencing, 24/7 surveillance.

+ CECOT officials refuse to disclose actual population.

DAILY REGIMEN

+ Total lockdown. Prisoners are confined shoulder to shoulder in their cells 23.5 hours a day.

+ No outdoor time whatsoever.

+ Fluorescent lights remain on 24 hours a day. They have no sense of time and no sleep cycle.

+ They receive 30 minutes a day of tightly controlled corridor exercise.

+ No jobs, no classes, no books, no programs of any kind. Nothing.

+ CCTV watches prisoners 24 hours a day like “silent Gods.”

COMMUNICATION AND ISOLATION

+ No visits from family or lawyers.

+ No letters or phone calls.

+ All cell signal is blocked for a 1.5 mile radius.

+ Mass virtual trials via video link with up to 900 prisoners at a time.

+ Most inmates have never been formally charged or sentenced.

DISCIPLINE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTROL

+ Prisoners arrive barefoot and shackled with their heads bowed.

+ Forced to kneel in tight rows with their heads shaved upon arrival.

+ If they are to be punished, they are put into an even smaller cell that is completely dark.

+ Swift violence for perceived “disobedience” or breaking of any rule.

+ No sunlight, ever. No clocks. No time markers.

+ Inmates experience “profound psychological deterioration.”

+ Juveniles, around the age of 16, are in cells with hardened gang members.

+ Inmates are required to be “alert and obedient” at all times during the day.

+ Most sit idly. They are often required to remain silent. The rest of the time they remain mostly silent out of fear.

+ Some inmates have reportedly lost their voices from prolonged silence and stress.

+ Journalists who have been allowed in reported an atmosphere of “unnatural, tense silence.”

+ The guards are armed and wearing balaclavas to increase fear.

LIVING CONDITIONS

Sleep

+ Each cell is designed for 80 people, but often it far surpasses 100.

+ Inmates sleep on concrete floors without mattresses or on iron bunk tiers where they must lay across the metal slats.

+ Cells are so crammed full they sleep standing up or take turns laying down.

+ No pillows or blankets.

Food

+ Meals are minimal, rice and beans. Sometimes a tortilla. Sometimes an egg.

+ No utensils, prisoners eat with their hands.

+ Water is extremely limited. They share a jug within their cells.

+ Malnutrition is common and has been contributed to multiple deaths.

Hygiene

+ Each cell has 2 toilets and 2 sinks for 80+ men.

+ No privacy, ever. Constant filth and foul smells.

+ Bathing and “laundry” is done by buckets inside the cell.

+ Diseases are rampant. TB, scabies, fungal infections, stomach illnesses.

+ NO outside medical care is allowed, ever.

+ Over 350 inmates have died and most were due to medical conditions or abuse from guards.

+ If someone falls gravely ill, they are treated (if at all) in an on-site infirmary. “No prisoner ever leaves the premises alive” for medical care outside, a CECOT official told journalists, a chilling acknowledgment that even medical transfers are off the table.

ABUSE AND VIOLENCE

+ Much of the abuse is only recorded from President Bukeles former facility, the secrecy and lack of oversight at CECOT makes all reporting difficult. Nobody comes out, and dead bodies are viewed through photos. Human rights inspectors are denied access.

+ Beating by guards are common, especially upon first arrival. One man temporarily detained said he watched guards beat all new arrivals for an hour straight. When he tried to tell the guards he was wrongfully detained, they broke his ribs and threw him in a “dark hole” with 320 other men who also beat him.

+ Reported use of water torture and extended kneeling.

+ “Simulated drowning” has been repeatedly reported.

+ Guards often choose to humiliate. At the former CECOT facility, guards would strip inmates naked, push their faces into ice water until they nearly drowned while calling them “dogs” and “scum.”

+ Solitary confinement is used as punishment.

+ In the 350+ deaths since 2022, there were signs of asphyxiation, fractures and blunt trauma seen in photos.

+ Bodies are buried in mass graves, with no family notification.

+ Rival gangs are mixed together as punishment.

+ Government claims gang hierarchy is broken, reports suggest otherwise.

+ One of the few people ever released from CECOT said they often had to sleep and live next to the corpses of their cell mates until the guards got around to removing them.

+ Another man said they had to kneel for hours and if someone collapsed from exhaustion, they would “drag them out like an animal.” He said many of the men there were “not even gang members.”

LEGAL

+ Held without trial.

+ Virtually NO releases

+ Officials state openly they will never leave.

+ Many are serving decade long sentences without a trial.

+ The United States has sent 238 perceived Venezuelan gang members, 179 with no criminal records in the U.S. or abroad, under a $6,000,000 a year deal.

+ Humans rights refer to it as a “transnational penal colony” and a U.S. judge has referred to it as “wholly lawless.”

+ President Bukele has acknowledged that thousands of men in El Salvador prisons were “actually innocent”. Many of those men were released from those prisons, but prisoners in CECOT go through a one way door.

TESTIMONIES FROM INSIDE

+ CNN and CBS report that inmates sleep on concrete or bare steel.

+ Gang members claim it “breaks them emotionally.”

+ Inmates describe it as a place of “torture and death.”

+ Witnesses report having to sleep next to dead cell mates.

+ Guards claim “brutality is necessary.”

+ Police whistleblowers have admitted innocent men have been detained and abused.

+ One guard stated “they have nothing, so they have nothing to lose.”

HUMAN RIGHTS AND GLOBAL RESPONSE

+ Condemnation from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Inter-American Comission on Human Rights

+ CECOT violates Nelson Mandela Rules (UN Standard of Prisoner Treatment)

+ Cristosal reported 3,300 violations in the first year alone.

+ Human rights organizations refer to it as a “black hole for human rights”.

Some things I’d like to add:

+ Our country has sent innocent men here, we already know that. Some for tattoos that they misunderstood, some from “administrative errors”, some have been swept up simply for being neighbors, family or friends of the “perceived gang members.”

+ These men go into CECOT knowing they will never see or hear from their families again. Imagine being innocent?

+ Is this what you really wanted, MAGA? Do you think Jesus thinks this treatment of his children is ok? Or do you understand human rights exist for a reason? What does your gut tell you? If you know this is wrong, please help us. Please get involved. He didn’t tell you he was going to do this, you didn’t vote for this cruelty. The best time to do the right thing was the election, but the second best time is right now. Use your voice.

——————————————————-

NAMES OF MEN WHO MAY BE WRONGFULLY INCARCERATED AT CECOT

The names of the men we need to push to get back or at minimum, due process:

+ Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national and Maryland resident, was mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison in March 2025. Despite a 2019 U.S. immigration judge’s order protecting him from removal due to credible fears of gang persecution, Abrego Garcia was apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on March 12, 2025, during a routine check-in. He was subsequently deported on March 15, with the Trump administration later acknowledging the action as an “administrative error.”

+ Andry José Hernández Romero: A 31-year-old gay Venezuelan makeup artist seeking asylum in the U.S., Hernández Romero was deported based on tattoos interpreted as gang symbols. His attorney clarified that these tattoos were religious and cultural symbols common in his hometown. Despite having no criminal record and a credible asylum claim, he was sent to CECOT, where concerns for his safety have been raised due to his sexual orientation and the prison’s notorious conditions.

+ Jose Franco Caraballo Tiapa: A barber who entered the U.S. seeking asylum, Caraballo was detained after an immigration officer noticed a tattoo of a clock on his arm, symbolizing the time of his daughter’s birth—a common design in Venezuela. Despite lacking a criminal record and having a pending asylum case, he was deported to CECOT under allegations of gang affiliation.

+ Jerce Reyes Barrios: A 35-year-old former professional soccer player from Venezuela, Barrios fled persecution and sought asylum in the U.S. He was detained and deported due to tattoos, including one resembling the Real Madrid logo, which authorities misinterpreted as gang-related. Despite providing evidence of his innocence and lack of criminal history, he was sent to CECOT.

+ E.M.: Identified only by initials for safety, E.M. fled Venezuela with his girlfriend and was granted refugee status in the U.S. He was detained and deported based on tattoos of a crown, soccer ball, and palm tree, common symbols in Venezuelan culture. His family was not informed of his deportation and later discovered his fate through media reports.

+ Francisco Javier García Casique: A 24-year-old Venezuelan hairdresser, García was deported and featured in a Salvadoran government video showcasing shackled prisoners. His family and advocates assert he has no gang affiliations and was wrongfully detained based on superficial indicators like tattoos.

+ Mervin Jose Yamarte Fernandez: a Venezuelan national, was deported despite having no criminal record. He was apprehended during a routine immigration check-in, with authorities citing alleged gang affiliations based on superficial indicators. He is currently detained in CECOT, with ongoing legal efforts seeking his return.

+ Jhon Chacin: a Venezuelan tattoo artist, sought asylum in the U.S. After his asylum application was denied, he agreed to voluntary deportation to Venezuela. However, his flight was rerouted, and he was instead sent to CECOT in El Salvador. Chacin remains imprisoned in CECOT, with his family and legal representatives advocating for his release.

+ Maiker Espinoza Escalona: Espinoza Escalona was detained by U.S. authorities and held at Guantanamo Bay before his deportation. Despite legal challenges and a court order prohibiting such deportations, he was sent to CECOT on March 17, 2025. He is currently incarcerated in CECOT, with limited information available about his well-being.

HOW TO HELP

+ Raise Public Awareness

• Speak out on social media

• Share the stories of men like Andry José Hernández Romero and Jose Caraballo Tiapa, whose cases highlight the injustice and lack of due process.

• Tag journalists, members of Congress, and human rights organizations when sharing posts to increase visibility.

+ Contact Your Representatives

If you’re in the U.S. (or another democratic country), contact your elected officials and ask them to:

•Demand accountability for wrongful deportations, especially of asylum seekers.

• Pressure the State Department to work with El Salvador for the release of innocent detainees.

• Support oversight of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

You can use sample language like:

“I’m calling to express deep concern about the deportation of Venezuelan asylum seekers to El Salvador’s CECOT prison, where many are held without charges under abusive conditions. I urge you to call for their return and an investigation into this violation of due process.”

+ Support Legal and Human Rights Groups

Donate to or volunteer with organizations that are actively working on these issues:

• Human Rights Watch (HRW)

• Amnesty International

• ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project

• RAICES

• Cristosal (El Salvador-based human rights org)

• International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)

These groups can:

• Help mount legal cases.

• Collect testimonies.

• Apply international pressure.

• Assist families of the detained.

+ Engage Media and Petition Platforms

• Start or sign petitions demanding that the U.S. and Salvadoran governments release innocent detainees from CECOT.

• Share firsthand accounts, where available, to humanize the crisis and move it out of the “policy” category and into the public conscience.

+ Pressure International Bodies

• Write to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights or the United Nations Human Rights Council.

• Demand they investigate abuses in CECOT and intervene diplomatically.

• Urge them to monitor deportations from the U.S. for violations of international refugee law.

+ Connect with Families and Survivors

• If you’re able, amplify the voices of affected families, especially those with loved ones trapped in CECOT.

• Many are already speaking out through platforms like CBS News, The Guardian, and El País, reaching out or supporting those efforts can magnify impact.

_____________________

Everyone can resist! Everyone can do something!

I set out walking with my SPEAK UP
STOP GENOCIDE
sign. No idea what would come of this.
Sat for about 40 minutes in from on MADIS, 36th and Lancaster, then waked to 34th and Market, where I sat for almost two hours. Some V signs, a few appreciative nod, mostly indifference.
Got tired and started up, walking up 34th. Something was going on across the street– on the Drexal green space at the end of Lancaster. Hard to see.. the food truck blocked the view, but there were cops, and then… a large banner.. with HELL in big red letters. I knew what that was… those hateful Xians who go out to harrass gays and women. I crossed the street… there were a couple hundred students in a crescent, watching this pitiful demonstration. I cut in front of them, holding up my sign—my Free Palestine T-shirt, keffiyeh… I saw the crowd start to wave their arms and cheer… at first I didn’t know what it was… then realized, they were cheering me!
One woman came up, to shake hands, and ask if it was ok to do a Selfie with me… so somewhere, there is the image of my face, with this young woman, and me holding up my fingers in a V sign.
Turned into a nice surprise adventure. When you think, you’re all alone, and there’s nothing you can do… fight that inhibition. Use your imagination, get out and begin making a difference.
Don’t have to be a giant demonstration. Think how effective it would be to have someone on every corner you pass, holding their own signs, their own message to fight TRUMP, to stop the genocide. We are so much more powerful than most believe.

It is our duty to fight for our freedom!

D. Earl Stephens, retired managing editor of the military’s daily newspaper, Stars and Stripes, issues a warning, not only to the average citizen of the U.S. but, I believe, to rank and file military personnel at home and around the world.

He’s exhorting them to consider if they will follow the orders of a madman hell bent on destroying the U.S. or follow the U.S. Constitution. I suspect tens of thousands of troops will disobey orders rather than invade Canada (less so with Greenland or Panama, I suspect). Those will be the first shots of the civil war.

I’m posting the entire text of his piece here and will link to the article in comments.

@followers @highlight

—

“It would be helpful if we stopped pretending this terrible chapter in American history won’t close without bloodshed …

It would be helpful if Americans, and our feeble Democratic politicians in particular, stopped implying by their comatose actions that Democracy is some damn American right and has no end date.

America very well might be arriving at hers, because, yes, it really is that bad right now.

Rather than bringing Ping-Pong paddles and groovy, little signs to a fascist hate-fest disguised as a State of the Union speech, it would be helpful if our meek, out-of-touch Democratic politicians at least pretended they understood the perilous moment we are standing in right now.

We are in deep, deep trouble, and now would be a wonderful, necessary time to step in front of your favorite mirror and honestly ask yourself what you are willing to do to fight for our country’s survival.

We are but six-plus weeks into the repulsive, wannabe-king’s second term and the damage he and his party are causing are already at catastrophic levels.

Our air, water, earned benefits, peace, public safety, civil rights, and human rights are all under immediate threat. Worse? This is only the first course of many that will be served by the vindictive, orange madman, and his pathetic party of supplicants.

The insults, the attacks, endless provocations, and thrashing of our Constitution will continue daily. All this carefully planned evil will be aimed at exactly one thing: breaking us.

Everything he is doing is designed to pound us into submission, and he’s having a grand damn doing it.

This was entirely his aim when he and his pet mutt, JD Vance, double-teamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the behest of Boss Putin in the Oval Office on Friday. The idea was to publicly humiliate the man who has done more to defend America’s interests across the globe than any Republican in memory.

Because Zelenskyy has tasted gun powder and breathed the odious smell of death on the battlefield, he wasn’t about to be pushed around by some morbidly obese, 78-year-old yacht club bully and his toady, who think swinging a sand wedge to free a golf ball from some bunker is dangerous business.

Zelenskyy punched back and wasn’t having it. He told the truth, and didn’t back down. The future of his country is on the line right now, and he acted like it.

And therein lies the playbook for dealing with this sadistic bastard — if only the cautious, too-clever Democratic Party and their weak leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, bothered paying attention.

While Rome burns, they dither.

They act as if we have all the time in the world, when time is something that is not guaranteed right now. They seem to somehow have no idea how bad things are about to get, or most certainly will be when elections they seem to be pinning their hopes on roll around next year.

Everything changed on November 5th, but by the looks of it, very little has changed in the Democratic Party.

This country will never be the same, and the sooner we come to grips with that, and start acting accordingly the better.

What would you do if everything you had and everyone you loved was threatened? Would you act like Zelenskyy or Schumer?

One of the big mistakes of Joe Biden’s presidency was this notion that everything was going to be OK, and that his idea of America matched the actual circumstances of America.

If I had a dollar for every time he said this, I’d fold up shop and move to Tahiti:

“We are the United States of America – there’s nothing we can’t do if we do it together. We just have to remember who we are.”

It was a noble statement and magical thinking that would have worked great pre-2016, when we could still believe without being laughed at that our two parties could work together in a crisis to protect America.

When we were attacked by the terrible human being who is now somehow leading us January 6, 2021, that magical thinking needed to go out the nearest window.

Instead, our Justice Department twiddled its thumbs and allowed the America-attacker to build himself back up, so that WE would have to deal with him AGAIN.

I seethe just thinking about this, but it is where we are right now, and the sooner we all understand this the better.

The clock is ticking. The bomb is in place.

Which brings me back around to my original premise: At some point, he will do something so heinous … so anti-America … so dangerous … that the people who truly love our country will be forced into the streets to take a life-or-death stand. Sadly, this is actually the best-case scenario, because the worst case is we just go quietly into the dark, gloomy night and become an authoritarian country, where we have zero rights or say in how we are governed.

Yesterday under the cover of his blankets, the America-attacker shared this with us:

Now read the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES.”

He is telling us

what he thinks of America and silly things like the Constitution. Kings don’t pay attention to that kind worthless drivel.

And, really, end of the day, it not him who we have most to fear. It’s the stupid, goddam Republicans who are stubbornly in all of our lives. These are the people who have illustrated there is no known pain or sacrifice to our civil liberties or pocketbooks that they won’t absorb just for the satisfaction of watching some poor kid of color going without something they didn’t think she should have.

So the choice is yours: You can continue thinking there is some magical way out of this, or you can begin to take the threat to everything you hold dear seriously, and ACT accordingly.”

— D. Earl Stephens, author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes.

What is to be done?


I am old, and partly disabled. There is not much in the way of resistance I can offer…
but I will never stop speaking out!
I will wear a Keffiyeh.
I will wear my FREE PALESTINE t-shirt.
I will carry my cane with FUCK TRUMP painted on the seat.
I will speak out on the street.
I will speak out, riding the bus.
I will ask those I meet to join me.
Be visible! Make yourself heard!
Let anyone who sees you in passing, KNOW WHAT YOU STAND FOR.
We must never be silent.
(Follow Rebecca Solnit on Bluesky)

What can we do?

I am old and partly disabled. I cannot walk far without pain, but I do what I can to keep resistance visible…
…In how I appear in public… and other ways. I wear a kaffyiah. A Free Palestine t-shirt. and carry on my cane-stool, a prominent FUCK TRUMP.

Most people on the street are buried in their phones, and don’t see anything in their surroundings, but I get enough reactions to encourage me to feel that those involved, or impacted in any way, or simply, aware of the historic storm that is sweeping us up–are encouraged simply to encounter another person who supports them in their concerns.

A woman pulled over when I was waiting for a bus on Walnut–tell me she is from–and has family in Palestine–and thanked me… this was back when students were protesting on the campus (where I visited every day to talk with those students, and remind them that this, like every resistance movement, has deep roots in history, and they should be proud of being a part of it.

We should not discount the importance of what small actions we can take.
If you have a kaffiyeh, wear it when you go out. Talk with your friends, your neighbors.

By the way–on their FB profile, the HUMUS food place on Walnut off 40th is owned by a Zionist supporter, and is hasbara poster on social media. Don’t patronize them. Spread the word.