SAN SALVADOR – The Congress of El Salvador extended for 30 days plus a exception regime started on March 27, 2022, after a wave of murders caused by gangs in that country.
The fourteenth extension was approved on the night of Tuesday, May 16, with 67 of 84 votes in Congress, taking the recent murder of a police agent in the north of the Salvadoran capital as a context.
In the 13 months that the measure has been in place, the Police have captured 68,720 people, and the Ministry of Security admits having released 5,000 after not having been shown links to the gangs.
“The results we have obtained show us that we are on the right path, which have allowed us to restore hope to more than 6.3 million Salvadorans to live in this country in peace, tranquility and move freely,” justified the Minister of Security, Gustavo Villatoro before the request.
Meanwhile, the director of the Police, Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, said that it was a constitutional tool of El Salvador.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and other international organizations have pointed out human rights violations during the implementation of the emergency regime in El Salvador, highlighting threats, torture and arbitrary captures among these violations.
Nevertheless, El Salvador maintains that it has achieved a significant reduction in the drop in homicides. A few days ago, the government celebrated 365 days without homicides, although not consecutive, since Nayib Bukele took office on June 1, 2019.
El Salvador has one of the lowest homicide rates in the Latin American region, second only to Chile and Peru, which registered the two lowest in 2022.
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