José Ángel Pérez
José Ángel Pérez is a human rights defender, with more than 25 years of community leadership and a prominent figure in the campesino resistance movement. He is the president of Cooperativa El Bosque (Bosque Cooperative), an association that brings together 300 campesino families based in Santa Tecla, La Libertad, El Salvador. Pérez is also a day labourer and evangelical pastor. Throught out his career defending human rights he has focused on community organisation and supporting the congregation in the fight for their human rights.
The human rights defender community is regularly subjected to campaigns of defamation - they are labeled as 'traitors of the nation', 'terrorists' and 'subversive'. This tactic employed by the authorities is designed to discredit and undermine the work of human rights defenders by isolating and marginalising them, making them a vulnerable target for abuse. Community leaders and environmental activists who are opposed to large-scale mining projects face death threats and violence.
Abortion is criminalised in El Salvador and, unlike in many other countries where this is the case, the law is enforced. HRDs campaigning for the release of women imprisoned on suspicion of abortion have been subjected to threats and intimidation.
