Marianella García Villas

Marianella García Villas was a Salvadoran attorney, who served in the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador from 1974 to 1976 before resigning her post to found the first independent human rights commission in the country. After the 1979 coup d'état led to the installation of a military junta, she began documenting human rights abuses in the country, helping families report disappearances and imprisonments. Under personal threat and with escalating violations of rights, García took her documentation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, gaining international notice of the situation inside the country. She was assassinated by the Salvadoran Armed Forces in 1983 and was posthumously awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Services to Human Rights.