Salvador Police Tortured Her, Freed Human Rights Activist Says

President Jose Napoleon Duarte freed a jailed leader of an anti-government human rights group Tuesday and described the action as a demonstration of El Salvador’s move toward democracy.

But the freed woman, after thanking the president, charged that she had been “vilely tortured” by the police.

The woman, Maria Teresa Tula Pinto, told Duarte that she was arrested by “heavily armed men in civilian clothing.” She added: “Since you are giving us a democracy, I ask for the respect of human rights and that (officials) identify themselves as security forces and not as death squads when they capture a person.”

Duarte listened to the charges that cast a cloud over his move, then said that Tula’s remarks were further proof that El Salvador is a democracy.

“You see,” he said, “this could not have happened in the last 50 years in this country. . . . Only when there are democratically elected governments can these things happen.”

Dressed in Black

The exchange took place in a press conference at the presidential residence, where Tula was taken from the women’s prison. She was dressed in the black clothing that is a trademark of her organization, and she carried her 2-month-old son, who was born in prison.

Tula, 35, a longtime leader of the Msgr. Oscar Arnulfo Romero Mothers Committee for Political Prisoners and the Disappeared, was detained May 28 in downtown San Salvador. The committee, known by its Spanish acronym, Comadres, represents the thousands of Salvadorans who have disappeared or been imprisoned or displaced in 6 1/2 years of civil war.

Eight other human rights workers were also seized in late May, after public charges by a captured activist that the human rights groups are run by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, which is fighting to oust the Duarte government.

The captured activist, Luz Janet Alfaro, said she was a guerrilla defector and named dozens of human rights and refugee workers, lawyers and religious leaders who she said were members of leftist guerrilla groups in the Farabundo Marti Front.

Alfaro, her sister, Syonara, and Dora Angelica Campos, a secretary of Comadres, were released after publicly admitting that they had worked for the guerrillas. The other six remain in prison.

Prison Conditions Protested

Duarte said he will investigate Tula’s charge that she was beaten as well as a petition she handed him from 76 women political prisoners protesting prison conditions.

Duarte said Tula was released by a court order that he sought after receiving appeals from Salvadoran journalists, but he refused to say whether she was considered guilty or innocent of subversive activities.

“My effort is to distinguish between those who have some position different from the government’s and those who are against the government,” he said. “ . . . My thesis is that no one should be persecuted for his ideas, but it is different if someone commits a subversive action.”

Duarte has been trying to convince the guerrillas that it is safe for them to put down their arms and take part in the political system. In July, Duarte freed Febe Elizabeth Velasquez, a union leader in police custody for alleged subversive activities.

Tula asked Duarte if she would be protected from “recapture or any other situation,” and Duarte said she would be free as long as she obeyed the law.

Scar on Her Midriff

In a prison interview last month, Tula described being beaten by agents of the Treasury Police. She said they held her for 12 days before she was sent to prison. She also told of a three-day abduction in early May by unidentified men in civilian dress, and she showed a scar on her midriff that she said was the result of knife wound inflicted by the men who seized her.

After the appearance with Duarte, Tula said in an interview at the Comadres’ human rights office that she had been forced by the military judge who freed her to go to the presidential residence and that Duarte was using her for political gain.