Amnesty International (AI) denounced this Tuesday that the “violence” exercised by the Salvadoran Statewithin the framework of an emergency regime in force since March 2022 and an “alarming regression” in the protection of human rights, “gradually replaces” that exercised by gangs in impoverished communities.
AI presented a report in San Salvador in which it points out the Government of Nayib Bukele, now candidate for immediate re-election, of restricting and violating “fundamental rights, including the right to life and the prohibition of torture.”
(Also read: Who is the woman who will occupy the presidency of El Salvador during Bukele’s leave?).
“What we are witnessing in El Salvador is a tragic repetition of history, where state violence is gradually replacing gang violence, leaving the same vulnerable communities trapped in an endless cycle of abuse and hopelessness,” said AI Americas director Ana Piquer in a statement.
He added that “these cases are not isolated, but part of a pattern of systematic and widespread abuse that primarily affects marginalized and impoverished communities.”
Since March 2022, El Salvador has been under an emergency regime that suspends constitutional guarantees after an escalation of homicides attributed to gangs and which has left at least 73,800 arrests.
(Keep reading: After leave from Congress, Bukele leaves the presidency to seek re-election).
The report “Behind the veil of popularity: repression and regression in matters of human rights in El Salvador” by AI is based “on three investigative missions and 83 interviews.” Furthermore, it documents “the installation of a context marked by the deepening of a punitive and repressive approach to public security.”
Also, it points out “the adoption of a legal framework that puts due process at risk; the systematic use of torture and other ill-treatment against people deprived of liberty in penal centers.”
And he denounces “the deployment of a series of government actions that restrict civic space” and that “attack freedom of expression and association”, such as “harassment of the profession of journalism” and “the application of excessive controls towards media outlets and civil society organizations.”
In June 2022, Amnesty International warned that Bukele was plunging the country into “a human rights crisis after three years of government.”
(We recommend: The keys to Bukele’s license application to run for re-election in El Salvador).
In the context of the emergency regime, AI indicated that humanitarian organizations have documented 327 cases of forced disappearances, approximately 102,000 people deprived of libertya situation of prison overcrowding of 236% and more than 190 deaths in state custody.
There are more than 5,000 “direct victims”, the majority were young and who had suffered arbitrary detention by the security authorities.
EFE
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