A day after a public request to President Nayib Bukele, authorities on Wednesday released the father of a Salvadoran soccer team player arrested for allegedly belonging to gangs.
Marcelo “El Chiky” Díaz, a player for Deportivo Águila of the first division and the national soccer team, wrote a letter to Bukele published on the social network As a family, we are going through a situation that we never expected to experience.”
“On behalf of him, myself and our entire family we sincerely ask you to correct this mistake and that my father can return home, to his routine, to his work and to his family,” pleaded the player who assured that his father He is a man who has never had problems with the law.
Authorities did not publicly respond to the player's call, but on Wednesday it was confirmed that the man had already been released.
“Thank you to everyone but mainly to God for being a God of justice. My father is at home. He is well, he is healthy, he has been well treated. My solidarity with all the families who are going through similar situations,” Díaz wrote on his X account.
The player explained in his public letter that his father was arrested on March 30 when he went to see him play at the Cuscatlán Stadium in San Salvador, “as he has always done.” When he entered, “he was searched, detained and then detained by agents of the PNC (National Civil Police) alleging that he belongs to criminal groups.”
He added that his family comes from a poor neighborhood but stressed that this “is not synonymous with crime, in fact, in our case we have been direct beneficiaries of the security strategies implemented by your government.”
Since March 2022, when the emergency regime was implemented that suspends several constitutional guarantees such as the right to be informed of the reasons for arrest and access to a lawyer, authorities have captured more than 79,200 people accused of belonging to gangs or collaborate with them. More than 7,000 people have been released because their links to gangs could not be proven.
Six human rights organizations recently presented a report in which they recorded 6,305 human rights violations and detailed cases of arbitrary detentions, forced displacement and deaths in prisons.
The non-governmental organization Socorro Jurídico indicated in a report at the beginning of April that during two years of the emergency regime, at least 241 people have died in prison and that “44% died from violent death, serious torture” and “29 % due to lack of medical care.”
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