El Salvador enacted a state of emergency last year due to the rise in gang crime, which allows the restriction of constitutional rights. Human rights organizations have criticized the matter.
of El Salvador the government has opened a huge new prison in the country, to which it plans to transfer 40,000 prisoners suspected of gang activity. The prison named the Terrorism Control Center is known to be the largest in the Americas.
The first 2,000 prisoners were transferred to the facility on Friday, according to the news agency Reuters and the British Broadcasting Corporation, among others. BBC.
The prisoners were transferred to the new prison in chains and half-naked. The president of El Salvador, a country of about 6.5 million inhabitants Nayib Bukele said that the transfer took place “in one operation” and that the prisoners would live in the new prison “for decades, all together, without being able to do any further harm to the population.”
Located in Tecoluca, about 74 kilometers from the country’s capital, San Salvador, the prison consists of eight buildings. Each of them has 32 cells of 100 square meters, which house “more than a hundred” prisoners each. There are only two toilets and sinks in the cells.
A new 40,000 inmate prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador.
Bukele declared a “war on gangs” in El Salvador last year.
At the request of the president, the president’s allies in the country’s congress established a state of emergency in the country almost a year ago, which has since been extended several times. The reason for its adjustment is said to have been a dramatic rise in murders related to gang violence.
Under the state of emergency, the administration can limit people’s constitutional rights: arrests can be made without search warrants, authorities can search personal communications, and detainees no longer have the right to a lawyer.
State of emergency since the enactment, more than 64,000 people have been arrested. According to the El Salvadoran government, the purpose of the mass arrests is “to make the gangs disappear completely.” El Salvador’s security minister told Reuters that the crackdown on gang activity will continue until “all the criminals have been caught.”
The country’s authorities have claimed that criminal gangs such as MS-13 and Barrio-18 have tens of thousands of members and are responsible for murder, extortion and drug trafficking.
Human rights organizations have raised concerns about innocent people being arrested. According to the organizations, the detainees have been treated “cruelly, inhumanely and humiliatingly.” More than ten people have died after being arrested by the police.
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