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    State department softens human rights criticisms of Trump-allied countries

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    Donald Trump’s administration has significantly changed a key US government report on human rights worldwide, dramatically softening criticism of some countries that have been strong partners of the Republican president, such as El Salvador and Israel, which rights groups say have well-established histories of abuses.Instead, the US state department sounded an alarm about what it said was the erosion of freedom of speech in Europe and ramped up criticism of Brazil and South Africa – both of which Washington has clashed with over a host of issues.Criticism of governments over their treatment of LGBTQ+ rights, which appeared in Biden administration editions of the report, appeared to have been largely omitted. Washington referred to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine mainly as the “Russia-Ukraine war”.The report’s section on Israel was much shorter than last year’s edition and contained no mention of the severe humanitarian crisis or death toll in Gaza. About 61,000 people have died, according to the Gaza health ministry, as a result of Israel’s military operations in response to an attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in October 2023.The report was delayed for months as Trump appointees altered an earlier state department draft dramatically to bring it in line with “America First” values, according to government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The report introduced new categories such as “Life”, “Liberty” and “Security of the Person”.“There were no credible reports of significant human rights abuses,” the 2024 report said about El Salvador, in sharp contrast with the 2023 report that talked about “significant human rights issues” and listed them as credible reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings, torture, and harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.Washington’s bilateral ties with El Salvador have strengthened since Trump took office, as the administration has deported people to El Salvador with help from President Nayib Bukele, whose country is receiving $6m from the US to house the migrants in a high-security mega-prison.The Trump administration has moved away from the traditional US promotion of democracy and human rights, seeing it as interference in another country’s affairs, even as it criticized countries selectively, consistent with its broader policy towards a particular country.One example is Europe, where Trump officials repeatedly weighed in on European politics to denounce what they see as suppression of rightwing leaders, including in Romania, Germany and France, and accused European authorities of censoring views such as criticism of immigration.For decades, the state department’s congressionally mandated Human Rights Report has been used as a blueprint of reference for global rights advocacy.This year’s report was prepared after a major revamp of the department, which included the firing of hundreds of people, many from the agency’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which takes the lead in writing the report.The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in April wrote an opinion piece that said the bureau had become a platform for “left-wing activists”, saying the Trump administration would reorient the bureau to focus on “Western values”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn Brazil, where the Trump administration has clashed with the government, the state department found the human rights situation declined, after the 2023 report found no significant changes. This year’s report took aim at the courts, stating they took action undermining freedom of speech and disproportionately suppressing the speech of supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro, among others.Bolsonaro is on trial before the supreme court on charges he conspired with allies to violently overturn his 2022 presidential election loss to the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Trump has referred to the case as a “witch-hunt” and called it grounds for a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods.In South Africa, whose government the Trump administration has accused of racial discrimination towards Afrikaners, this year’s report said the human rights situation significantly worsened. It stated: “South Africa took a substantially worrying step towards land expropriation of Afrikaners and further abuses against racial minorities in the country.”In last year’s report, the state department found no significant changes in the human rights situation in South Africa.Trump, earlier this year, issued an executive order that called for the US to resettle Afrikaners, describing them as victims of “violence against racially disfavored landowners”, allegations that echoed far-right claims but which have been contested by South Africa’s government. More

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      US court tosses judge’s contempt order over Trump’s El Salvador deportations

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      An appeals court on Friday tossed out a judge’s finding of contempt against the Trump administration in a case over the notorious deportations of Venezuelans from the US to an El Salvador prison without due process.The decision from a divided three-judge panel based in the nation’s capital vacates a finding from US district judge James Boasberg.Boasberg found in April there was probable cause to hold Donald Trump’s administration in criminal contempt of court for willfully disregarding his 15 March order barring the deportations to El Salvador of more than 250 Venezuelans from immigration detention in the US to a brutal prison in the Central American country, under an agreement with the Salvadorian leadership, without the chance to challenge their removals. The Trump administration appealed.On Friday, Washington DC circuit judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both of whom were nominated by Trump in his first term in the White House, concurred with the unsigned majority opinion. Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was appointed by Barack Obama when he was president, dissented.View image in fullscreenBoasberg had accused Trump administration officials of rushing deportees out of the country under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act before they could challenge their removal in court and then willfully disregarding his order that planes already in the air should return to the US.The Republican administration has denied violating his order.“The district court’s order raises troubling questions about judicial control over core executive functions like the conduct of foreign policy and the prosecution of criminal offenses,” circuit judge Katsas wrote in an opinion.The Trump administration claimed that all the Venezuelans it removed to El Salvador outside the normal constitutional process were violent gang members, which many of the deportees denied and critics said, regardless of any of the individuals’ criminal guilt or innocence, did not justify denying them due process in the US.The episode has been one of the most high-profile of the second Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration agenda, in addition to widespread raids and arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers in communities across the country.“The district court’s order attempts to control the Executive Branch’s conduct of foreign affairs, an area in which a court’s power is at its lowest ebb,” Rao wrote.Pillard dissented. “The majority does an exemplary judge a grave disservice by overstepping its bounds to upend his effort to vindicate the judicial authority that is our shared trust,” she wrote.The 250 migrants have since been released back to their home country in a prisoner swap with the US after months at the mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot).The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, celebrated the appeals court ruling, calling it a “MAJOR victory defending President Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act” in a social media post and vowing to “continue fighting and WINNING in court”.Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represented the migrants, said there was “zero ambiguity” in Boasberg’s order about the planes.“We strongly disagree with today’s decision regarding contempt and are considering all options going forward,” he said.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting More

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      ‘Cemetery of the living dead’: Venezuelans recall 125 days in notorious El Salvador prison

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      Arturo Suárez struggles to pinpoint the worst moment of his incarceration inside a prison the warden boasted was “a cemetery of the living dead”.Was it the day inmates became so exasperated at being beaten by guards that they threatened to hang themselves with their sheets? “The only weapon we had was our own lives,” recalled the Venezuelan former detainee.Was it when prisoners staged a “blood strike”, cutting their arms with broken pipes and smearing their bedclothes with crimson messages of despair? “SOS!” they wrote.Or was rock bottom for Suárez when he turned 34 while stranded in a Central American penitentiary prison officers had claimed he would only leave in a body bag?Suárez, a reggaeton musician known by the stage name SuarezVzla, was one of 252 Venezuelans who found themselves trapped inside El Salvador’s notorious “Cecot” terrorism confinement centre after becoming embroiled in Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant crusade.After 125 days behind bars, Suárez and the other detainees were freed on 18 July after a prisoner swap deal between Washington and Caracas. Since flying home to Venezuela, they have started to open up about their torment, offering a rare and disturbing glimpse of the human toll of President Nayib Bukele’s authoritarian crackdown in El Salvador and Trump’s campaign against immigration.View image in fullscreenSuárez said conditions inside the maximum security prison were so dire he and other inmates considered killing themselves. “My daughter’s really little and she needs me. But we’d made up our minds. We decided to put an end to this nightmare,” he said, although the prisoners stepped back from the brink.Another detainee, Neiyerver Rengel, 27, described his panic after guards claimed he would probably spend 90 years there. “I felt shattered, destroyed,” said the Venezuelan barber, who was deported to Cecot after being captured in Irving, Texas.Trump officials called the Venezuelans – many of whom had no criminal background – “heinous monsters” and “terrorists” but largely failed to produce proof, with many seemingly targeted simply for being Venezuelan and having tattoos.Norman Eisen, the executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, which is helping Rengel sue the US government for $1.3m, called the “abduction” of scores of Venezuelans a stain on his country’s reputation. “It is shocking and shameful and every patriotic American should be disgusted by it,” said Eisen, who expected other freed prisoners to take legal action.Suárez’s journey to one of the world’s harshest prisons began in Chile’s capital, Santiago, where the singer had moved after fleeing Venezuela’s economic collapse in 2016.One day early last year, before deciding to migrate to the US, Suárez watched a viral YouTube video about the “mega-prison” by the Mexican influencer Luisito Comunica.Bukele officials had invited Comunica to film inside Cecot as part of propaganda efforts to promote an anti-gang offensive that has seen 2%of the country’s adult population jailed since 2022. Suárez, then a fan of El Salvador’s social media-savvy president, was gripped. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could afford a package tour to go and visit Cecot?” he recalled joking to his wife. Little did the couple know that Suárez would soon be languishing in Cecot’s cage-like cells, sleeping on a metal bunk bed.View image in fullscreenAfter entering the US in September 2024, Suárez worked odd jobs in North Carolina. In February, three weeks after Trump’s inauguration, he was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents and, in mid-March, put on a deportation flight, the destination of which was not revealed. When the plane landed, its passengers – who were instructed to keep its blinds closed – had no idea where they were. The penny dropped when one detainee disobeyed the order and spotted El Salvador’s flag outside. “That’s when we understood … where we were heading – to Cecot,” he said.Suárez described the hours that followed as a blur of verbal abuse and beatings, as disoriented prisoners were frogmarched on to buses that took them to Cecot’s cell block eight.Suárez said the men were forced to shave their heads and told by the warden: “Welcome to hell! Welcome to the cemetery of the living dead! You’ll leave here dead!”As he was dragged off the bus, Suárez, who is shortsighted, said he asked a guard for help because his spectacles were falling off: “He told me to shut up, punched me [in the face] and broke my glasses.”“What am I doing in Cecot?” Suárez recalled thinking. “I’m not a terrorist. I’ve never killed anyone. I make music.”Rengel had almost identical memories of his arrival: “The police officers started saying we were going to die in El Salvador – that it was likely we’d spend 90 years there.”Noah Bullock, the head of the El Salvador-focused human rights group Cristosal, said activists had heard very similar accounts from prisoners in other Salvadoran jails, suggesting such terror tactics were not merely the behaviour of “bad apple prison guards”. “There’s clearly a culture coming from the leadership of the prison system to inculcate the guards into operating this way, [into] using dehumanising and physical abuse in a systematic way.”View image in fullscreenSuárez said the Venezuelans spent the next 16 weeks being woken at 4am, moved between cells holding between 10 and 19 people, and enduring a relentless campaign of physical and psychological abuse. “There’s no life in there,” he said. “The only good thing they did for us was give us a Bible. We sought solace in God and that’s why nobody took their own life.”The musician tried to lift spirits by composing upbeat songs, such as Cell 31, which describes a message from God. “Be patient, my son. Your blessing will soon arrive,” its lyrics say.The song became a prison anthem and Suárez said inmates sang it, one day in March, when the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, visited Cecot to pose by its packed cells. “We aren’t terrorists! We aren’t criminals! Help!” the Venezuelans bellowed. But their pleas were ignored and the mood grew increasingly desperate, as the inmates were deprived of contact with relatives, lawyers and even the sun. “There came a point where we had no motivation, no strength left,” Rengel said.Only in mid-June was there a glimmer of hope when prisoners were given shampoo, razors and soap and measured for clothes. “They obviously wanted to hide what had happened from the world,” said Suárez, who sensed release might be close. One month later the men were free.Suárez said he was determined to speak out now he was safely back in his home town of Caracas. “The truth must be … heard all over the world. Otherwise what they did to us will be ignored,” said the musician, who admitted he had once been an admirer of Bukele’s populist campaigns against political corruption and gangs. “Now I realise it’s just a complete farce because how can you negotiate with human lives? How can you use human beings as bargaining chips?” Suárez said.A spokesperson for El Salvador’s government did not respond to questions about the prisoners’ allegations. Last week, the homeland security department’s assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, dismissed prisoners’ claims of abuses as “false sob stories”.Suárez hoped never to set foot in El Salvador or the US again but said he forgave his captors. “And I hope they can forgive themselves,” he added. “And realise that while they might escape the justice of man they will never be able to escape divine justice.” More

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      El Salvador’s president denies that Kilmar Ábrego García was abused in notorious prison

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      The president of El Salvador has denied claims that Kilmar Ábrego García was subjected to beatings and deprivation while he was held in the country before being returned to the US to face human-smuggling charges.Nayib Bukele said in a social media post that Ábrego García, the Salvadorian national who was wrongly extradited from the US to El Salvador in March before being returned in June, “wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight”.Bukele showed pictures and video of Ábrego García in a detention cell, adding: “If he’d been tortured, sleep-deprived, and starved, why does he look so well in every picture?”Ábrego García’s lawyers said last week that he had suffered “severe beatings”, sleep deprivation, malnutrition and other forms of torture while he was held in El Salvador’s notorious anti-terrorism prison, Cecot.Ábrego García said detainees at Cecot “were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day and minimal access to sanitation”.His lawyers say he lost 31 pounds during his first two weeks of confinement.They said that, at one point, Ábrego García and four other inmates were transferred to a different part of the prison, “where they were photographed with mattresses and better food – photos that appeared to be staged to document improved conditions”.Bukele made no reference to whether the photos he showed to claim Ábrego García wasn’t mistreated were taken in a nicer part of the prison.Bukele recently struck a deal under which the US will pay about $6m for El Salvador to imprison members of what the US administration claims are members of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, two gangs, for a year. According to Maryland senator Chris van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to meet with Ábrego García while he was detained there, the Trump administration intends to provide up to $15m to El Salvador for the controversial detention service.Bukele’s remarks came as the Tennessee judge in Ábrego García’s human-smuggling complaint ordered both sides to stop making public statements, after Ábrego García’s legal team accused the government of attempting to smear him without evidence as a “monster”, “terrorist” and “barbarian”.Lawyers for Ábrego García argued in a court filing that the government had violated a local rule barring comments that could be prejudicial to a fair trial.“For months, the government has made extensive and inflammatory extrajudicial comments about Mr Ábrego that are likely to prejudice his right to a fair trial,” Ábrego García’s lawyers said in a filing.“These comments continued unabated – if anything they ramped up – since his indictment in this district, making clear the government’s intent to engage in a ‘trial by newspaper’.”The US district judge Waverly Crenshaw issued the gag order in a two-sentence ruling.Ábrego García’s legal team has accused the government of trying to convict him in the court of public opinion since it acknowledged that it had mistakenly sent him to a prison in El Salvador despite a court order barring the move.“As Mr Ábrego’s plight captured national attention, officials occupying the highest positions of the United States government baselessly labeled him a ‘gangbanger’, ‘monster’, ‘illegal predator’, ‘illegal alien terrorist’, ‘wife beater’, ‘barbarian’ and ‘human trafficker,’” the filing said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe attorneys singled out the vice-president, JD Vance, who they said had lied when he called Ábrego García a “convicted MS-13 gang member”.They also said that Trump administration officials had made 20 more public statements about their client when he was arraigned, including in remarks by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche.They also said the attorney general, Pam Bondi, accused their client of crimes he hadn’t been accused of, including links to a murder case. In sum, the statements had asserted Ábrego García’s guilt “without regard to the judicial process or the presumption of innocence”, the filing said.According to the documents filed on Wednesday, officials within the prison acknowledged that Ábrego García was not a gang member, and that his tattoos did not indicate a gang affiliation.“Prison officials explicitly acknowledged that plaintiff Ábrego García’s tattoos were not gang-related, telling him ‘your tattoos are fine’,” according to the filing, and they kept him in a cell separate from those accused of gang membership.The prison officials, however, threatened to move Ábrego García into a cell with gang members whom officials said “would ‘tear’ him apart”.Separately, US prosecutors have agreed with a request by Ábrego García’s lawyers to delay his release from Tennessee jail over fears that the Trump administration could move to deport the Salvadorian national a second time.In a filing on Friday, lawyers for Ábrego García asked the judge overseeing a federal complaint that he was involved in human smuggling to delay his release because of “contradictory statements” by the Trump’s administration over whether he’ll be deported upon release.The justice department has said it plans to try the Maryland construction worker on the smuggling charges, but also that it plans to deport him but has not said when. 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      Kilmar Ábrego García was tortured in Salvadorian prison, court filing alleges

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      Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and detained in one of that country’s most notorious prisons, was physically and psychologically tortured during the three months he spent in Salvadorian custody, according to new court documents filed Wednesday.While being held at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador, Ábrego García and 20 other men “were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM”, according to the court papers filed by his lawyers in the federal district court in Maryland.Guards struck anyone who fell from exhaustion while kneeling, and during that time, “Ábrego García was denied bathroom access and soiled himself”, according to the filing.Detainees were held in an overcrowded cell with no windows, and bright lights on 24 hours a day. They were confined to metal bunk beds with no mattresses.Ábrego García’s testimony is one of the first detailed insights the world has into the conditions inside Cecot, a megaprison that human rights groups say is designed to disappear people.His lawyers say he lost 31 pounds during his first two weeks of confinement. Later, they write, he and four others were transferred to a different part of the prison “where they were photographed with mattresses and better food–photos that appeared to be staged to document improved conditions”.The filings also note that officials within the prison acknowledged that Ábrego García was not a gang member, and that his tattoos did not indicate a gang affiliation. “Prison officials explicitly acknowledged that plaintiff Ábrego García’s tattoos were not gang-related, telling him ‘your tattoos are fine,’” per the filing, and they kept him in a cell separate from those accused of gang membership.The prison officials, however, threatened to move Ábrego García into a cell with gang members whom officials said “would ‘tear’ him apart”.Ábrego García is currently in federal custody in Nashville. The Trump administration brought him back from El Salvador after initially claiming it was powerless to do so. The US justice department wants him to stand trial on human-smuggling charges. The administration has also accused him of being a member of the street gang MS-13, and Donald Trump has claimed that Ábrego García’s tattoos indicate that he belonged to the gang.Ábrego García has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify the administration’s mistake in deporting him after the fact.On Sunday , a Tennessee judge ordered his release while his criminal case plays out, but prosecutors said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would take Ábrego García into custody if that were to happen and he would be deported before he was given the chance to stand trial.A justice department lawyer, Jonathan Guynn, also told a federal judge in Maryland that the administration would deport Ábrego García not to El Salvador but to another, third country – contradicting statements from attorney general Pam Bondi that he would be sent to El Salvador.Amid the confusion, Ábrego García’s lawyers requested that their client remain in criminal custody, fearing that if he were released, he would be deported. Upcoming hearings in both Maryland and Tennessee will help decide whether Ábrego García will be able to remain in the US and be released from jail. More

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      Defense Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia Ask Judge to Release Him Pretrial

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      The request came as lawyers in Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s separate civil case were poised to ask a different judge to hold the Trump administration in contempt for sidestepping one of her orders.Defense lawyers for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant who was recently brought back to the United States to face a federal indictment after being wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador, said in court papers on Wednesday that he should remain free from custody as he awaits trial.The papers, filed in Federal District Court in Nashville, amounted to the opening salvo of efforts by the defense lawyers to challenge the charges that were filed last week against Mr. Abrego Garcia.“With no legal process whatsoever, the United States government illegally detained and deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia and shipped him to the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in El Salvador, one of the most violent, inhumane prisons in the world,” the lawyers wrote.“The government now asks this court to detain him further,” they went on, asking Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., who is handling the criminal case, to deny the request. Judge Crenshaw is set to hold a hearing on Friday to arraign Mr. Abrego Garcia and to hear arguments about whether to detain him before the trial.Mr. Abrego Garcia, a metalworker who was living in Maryland when he was arrested on March 12 and summarily deported three days later to El Salvador, had for weeks been trying through lawyers representing him in a separate civil case to enforce a court order instructing the Trump administration to take active measures toward securing his freedom.But after the administration repeatedly sought to sidestep and delay complying with that order, the Justice Department abruptly changed course. Top department officials announced on Friday that Mr. Abrego Garcia had been brought back to the United States to stand trial on charges of taking part in a yearslong conspiracy to smuggle thousands of undocumented immigrants across the country as a member of the violent street gang MS-13.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Return of Abrego Garcia Raises Questions About Trump’s Views of Justice

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      For the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against the man, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders to “facilitate” his release from El Salvador.When Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Friday that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia had been returned to the United States to face criminal charges after being wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador, she sought to portray the move as the White House dutifully upholding the rule of law.“This,” she said, “is what American justice looks like.”Her assertion, however, failed to grapple with the fact that for the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against Mr. Abrego Garcia, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders — including one from the Supreme Court — to “facilitate” his release.While the indictment filed against Mr. Abrego Garcia contained serious allegations, accusing him of taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle undocumented immigrants as a member of the street gang MS-13, it had no bearing on the issues that have sat at the heart of the case since his summary expulsion in March.Those were whether Mr. Abrego Garcia had received due process when he was plucked off the streets without a warrant and expelled days later to a prison in El Salvador, in what even Trump officials have repeatedly admitted was an error. And, moreover, whether administration officials should be held in contempt for repeatedly stonewalling a judge’s effort to get to the bottom of their actions.Well before Mr. Abrego Garcia’s family filed a lawsuit seeking to force the White House to release him from El Salvador, administration officials had tried all means at their disposal to keep him overseas as they figured out a solution to the problem they had created, The New York Times found in a recent investigation.Cesar Ábrego García, left, and Cecilia García, center, the brother and mother of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, participated in a press conference with Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, following his trip to El Salvador.Allison Bailey for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Interpol Arrests 20 Over Network That Distributed Child Sex Abuse Material

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      The international sweep included arrests in 12 countries across Europe and the Americas. The agency said there were also dozens of other suspects.Twenty people in Europe, the United States and South America have been arrested as part of an investigation into an international network that produced and distributed child sexual abuse material, Interpol said on Friday. The policing organization said the network was also thought to extend to Asia and the Pacific region.The arrests, which took place in 12 countries, were the result of a cross-border inquiry in which investigators tracked the illegal material online to people who viewed or downloaded it, according to Interpol.The sweep made public by Interpol on Friday included arrests in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Italy, Paraguay, Portugal, Spain and the United States. It also led investigators to 68 other suspects in 28 countries, including the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania, according to Interpol and the Spanish police.The investigation began last year in Spain, where officers from the national police force’s specialized cyberpatrols came across suspicious instant messaging groups, the Spanish police said in a statement on Friday. The police said the online groups had been set up exclusively to distribute images of child sexual exploitation.As the authorities in Spain became aware that the network behind the online messaging forums was international, they began to work with the Interpol, where investigators broadened the operation to South America, Interpol said.In the arrests announced on Friday, the police in Spain said they had detained seven people in five provinces, and seized cellphones, computers and storage devices. Investigators found that in some cases, those suspected of viewing or downloading the illegal images worked with children.In Seville in southern Spain, the police arrested a schoolteacher whom they accused of being in possession of exploitative images and belonging to several chat groups through which the illegal material was distributed.In Barcelona Province, the police arrested a health worker who treated children; the police said that he was suspected of paying minors in Eastern Europe for sexually explicit images.The police said that one man who was arrested in the town of El Masnou in Barcelona Province had downloaded a messaging app to watch the illegal material and later deleted the app to hide his activities from his family.In Latin America, officers arrested a teacher in Panama and 12 other people in countries across the region, Interpol said. More