SAN SALVADOR – With 67 of 84 votes, the Congress of El Salvador extended this Tuesday, for the eleventh time, a regime of exception at the national level with the objective of imprisoning 118,000 gang members.
In the 325 days that the measure has been in force, the Police have already captured 64,111 people accused of illegal groups and other criminal offenses.
“The (captured) terrorists will go to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) and will never return to our communities. The CECOT is the best monument that the government has made to justice (…) Nobody will stop us,” said the head of Security, Gustavo Villatoro, while delivering the decree to Congress President Ernesto Castro.
El Salvador has gone from a rate of 18.1 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021 to 7.8 in 2022. Despite this, there are legislators who oppose the measure.
“The victims of criminals deserve justice. But despite the arrests in the emergency regime, their cases remain unresolved. And new victims are added: the innocent imprisoned called ‘margin of error'”, published the deputy Claudia OrtÃz in your Twitter account.
Despite this, Villatoro added that thanks to the measure, they have seized 2,326 weapons, 2,945 vehicles, 15,312 telephones and 1.7 million dollars.
Between March 25 and 27, the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs murdered 87 Salvadorans in 12 of the 14 departments of the Central American country. The wave of violence was unusual, as El Salvador averaged three homicides a day at the time.
The exception regime in El Salvador suspends the rights of association and assembly, the inviolability of communications, and the right to administrative detention not exceeding 72 hours.
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channelYoutubeand activate notifications, or follow us on social networks: Facebook, Twitter and instagram.
