SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — After 50,000 people were detained on suspicion of gang links since the end of March, El Salvador’s Congress approved an extension of the exemption for another month, suspending some basic rights in the name of cracking down on the country’s powerful gangs. .
Despite criticism from civil rights groups in El Salvador and beyond, opinion polls show the measure is well received. Groups and relatives of the detainees said the people were arrested without evidence or due process and spent months behind bars awaiting trial.
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Legislature calling for an end to the exceptions ahead of a congressional vote later Tuesday.
President Naib Bukele demanded emergency powers following 62 gang killings on 26 March.
The exceptions are the right to association, the right to be informed of the reasons for arrest and the right to have access to a lawyer. The government can also tamper with the phone calls and emails of anyone they consider a suspect. The period of detention without charge has been increased from three to 15 days.
Arrested people are usually brought before a judge en masse, whom prosecutors accuse of belonging to a gang or having links with it. Usually no evidence is provided. The judge almost automatically ordered them to be held for six months pending trial, giving prosecutors time to try to build a case.
Buechler and his cabinet said these measures finally enabled the country to deal with its “terrorists”. The president has gone from daily tweets about the number of arrests to days when no murders were announced. The government is building a huge new prison.
Gangs numbering around 70,000 have been terrorizing El Salvador for a long time. They control large swaths of territory, engage in extortion and kill with impunity.
“We have a strong influence on the terrorist structure,” Security Minister Gustavo Villatolo said in a speech to lawmakers on Wednesday. “We have witnessed how the people of El Salvador were able to enjoy the safest vacation in history,” referring to the recent national holiday.
Outside of Congress ahead of the vote, Virginia Guadalupe Solano Lopez, 25, said her husband Jose Alfredo Vega died on March 27. He was vacationing at home with his daughter in Jikilisco, eastern El Salvador, when the police dragged him away without any explanation. Since then, she never saw him again.
“He was not a criminal … he was not recorded, he was not defiled,” she said. “They took him in because someone accused him of gang ties.”
The Peace Union movement opened a legal clinic and said it had recently received 500 complaints of arbitrary arrests. El Salvador’s human rights ombudsman Apolonio Tobar said his office had conducted 28 public inquiries into the deaths of people who died in detention as an exception.
The Bus Company Association said gang extortion of its members was reduced by 95 percent. “This is a respite,” the statement said.
Post time: Aug-18-2022