El Salvador reaches one hundred days of state of emergency with more than 44,000 arrests

One hundred days have passed since President Nayib Bukele requested in March to decree the state of exception in El Salvador and there are already more than 44,000 detainees. Meanwhile, civil organizations denounce numerous human rights violations.

“There is a widespread perpetration of acts of violence that constitute torture, in some cases leaving them almost unconscious, spraying them with pepper spray, with obvious blows, bruises that are not treated,” he said in conversation with the police. voice of america Sonia Rubio, from the Foundation for Due Process.

Activists and experts have expressed concern about the treatment of detainees, as the government has released images of arrests and the prisons in which they have been interned.

“We have gone from 40,000 people deprived of liberty to more than 80,000, with a prison system that barely exceeds its capacity of 20,000 people,” he told the press. VOA David Ortiz, legal collaborator of According to the Foundation of Studies for the Application of Law (FESPAD).

According to the Ministry of Justice and Security, during the emergency regime, 44,344 people have been arrested, accused of illicit associations and gang membership.

Bukele celebrates the operation

President Bukele exhibited on Monday through a tweet the statistics kept by the government of one more day without homicides.

“We cannot stop now, because if we stop now, they are going to regroup as they show us they can, they are going to adapt to the new reality and, once they have adapted to the new reality, it will be impossible to remove this cancer from our country. ”, Bukele said in a televised intervention.

The Salvadoran president announced that the construction of a “Terrorism Confining Center” has begun, as a continuation of the urgent fight undertaken against the gangs.

However, Rubio estimates, the operation could end in a dead end: “These measures are unsuccessful, they are not new and have proven to be totally ineffective in combating crime.”

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