Salvador Police Detain 2 Women Church Workers From Pasadena

SAN SALVADOR â€”  Police detained and questioned two California women working in a Salvadoran resettlement camp and then turned them over to the American Embassy, officials here said Friday.

An Episcopal minister in San Marino, the Rev. Donald Lewis, identified the two as Kathleene Hoy and Mary Parmenter of Pasadena. He said that their detention was part of increased harassment of lay U.S. church workers by Salvadoran authorities in recent months.

The women were detained “for entering restricted areas without authorization,� said Treasury Police agent Orlando Ramirez, whose jurisdiction includes customs and immigration investigations. Ramirez said the women were detained Thursday at the Copapayo camp near Suchitoto, about 25 miles northwest of San Salvador, a zone where guerrillas frequently carry out operations. Also detained were seven Salvadorans.

All were brought here to the capital, where the two U.S. citizens were released into the custody of U.S. Vice Consul Mark Schall after several hours of questioning, Ramirez said.

Lewis, chairman of a diocesan task force for Salvadoran resettlement, said in San Marino that he was informed of the detention by telephone by an embassy official in San Salvador. He said the military has been harassing Americans providing humanitarian assistance in El Salvador since about 20,000 Salvadoran refugees in Honduras decided to return to their homeland last fall.