The emergency regime in El Salvador, in the sights of the US Congress

The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the United States Congress held a special hearing on Monday with the purpose of evaluating the exception regime in El Salvador five months after its entry into force.

Last March, the Assembly of El Salvador approved a measure that suspended several constitutional rights, such as freedom of expression, freedom of association and due process. This with the purpose of stopping a wave of violence that culminated in 87 murders in one weekend.

Since then, the emergency regime in El Salvador has been extended five times and in its wake has left more than 52,000 people detained in overcrowded prisons. According to the human rights organization Cristosal, at least 73 detainees have died in the custody of the Salvadoran state.

Also, nine journalists have fled the Central American country after the same Assembly enacted a law that threatens the media and journalists who reproduce messages alluding to gangs in their reports with jail.

Two members of the US State Department appeared in the first block of the congressional hearing: Emily Mendrala, deputy secretary of the Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Scott Busby, deputy secretary of the Office of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

Mendrala assured that the State Department is concerned because the emergency regime “drastically reduced the protection of civil rights under the laws of El Salvador.”

“The Department of State remains firmly committed to the fight against transnational organized crime; however, some of the measures taken during the emergency regime go against the establishment of human rights standards and are unsustainable,” he declared.

For his part, Busby said he was clear that although the violence generated by gangs threatens the national security and prosperity of El Salvador, it must also be taken into account that it is a “problem that must be addressed urgently and comprehensively.”

“The contraction of civic space in Central America also threatens regional stability, prosperity and security. (…) Civil society organizations have stressed the importance of public and private statements by the international community,” he added.

Congressman James McGovern, who chaired the hearing, pointed to those who minimize criticism of the Salvadoran government, arguing that President Nayib Bukele’s actions are popular and his approval ratings are high “that popular does not equal correct.”

The paradox currently facing the Salvadoran president is that in your country receives majority supportwhile the international community views several of his decisions with caution, calling them “authoritarian.”

Witnesses from El Salvador

In the second section of the hearing, Tamara Broner, deputy director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch; Leonor Arteaga, program director of the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF); Noah Bullock, director of the Cristosal organization, and Héctor Silva, Salvadoran journalist.

“Based on our interviews with relatives of detainees and witnesses, many arrests appear to be based on people’s physical appearance and the fact that they live in low-income neighborhoods. We documented about seven cases of people with mental health issues who were arrested “Broner said at the hearing.

Arteaga added that the Latin American experience “has shown that these regimes can easily become tools for the abuse of power instead of pushing it to control a critical situation.”

Bullock, from Cristosal, highlighted numerous complaints that human rights organizations have received about arbitrary detentions and cases of torture inside Salvadoran prisons.

Silva Ávalos, a Salvadoran journalist, concluded that the exceptional regime has finished consolidating the power that the Bukele Executive already exercised together with the Salvadoran police and army.

official silence

After five hearings, the Salvadoran government did not issue any statements about it.

The voice of america he consulted the official press area on the subject, but there was no response either.

On other occasions, the government of El Salvador has said that the exceptional regime is hitting the structures of the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs harder and harder, in addition to achieving a reduction in crimes such as aggravated homicide.

The Salvadoran government is seeking to build the Terrorism Confinement Center prison, where it intends to hold more people accused of illicit groups and other gang-related crimes.

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