San Salvador.- A group of 70 humanitarian organizations warned this Thursday that the emergency regime approved in El Salvador and President Nayib Bukele’s attacks against human rights defenders “facilitates state abuses”.
El Salvador is under an emergency regime since Sunday after a wave of homicides that claimed the lives of more than 80 people, for which citizens have suspended rights such as defense before a judicial process.
“In the current context in the country, characterized by the abuse of power, excessive use of force by police officers, harassment and digital surveillance of journalists and human rights defenders, this measure poses a disproportionate threat to the protection and enjoy fundamental freedoms,” they said.
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They called on the Bukele Executive to comply “with its international commitments on human rights and stop the attacks against national and international civil society that works in favor of the protection of fundamental rights”.
The organizations indicated that the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice indicates that “an increase in criminality, although it may be an emergency, does not fit into those assumptions” that allow decreeing the exceptional regime.
“In these cases, the duty of the State is to make efficient use of existing laws and established institutions to contain the increase in homicides and create comprehensive public policies to prevent violence,” they pointed out.
They pointed out that “the Government has not complied with its duty to protect the life and physical integrity of people, despite the sustained increase in the budget invested in public security.”
The Bukele government attributed the accentuation of the drop in homicides, which began in 2016, to its Territorial Control Plan, which would have been overcome with the rise in homicides.
On March 26 alone, 62 murders were perpetrated, the highest number in a single day in the recent history of the Central American country.
They lamented that “despite the need to generate a public debate on the current situation of citizen security, the government of El Salvador has launched a media campaign against civil society organizations.”
This, they pointed out, included “direct harassment from the networks of President Nayib Bukele himself.”
“We urge the international community to remain alert and vigilant in the face of the situation in El Salvador, especially in the face of the measures that have been taken under this declaration of exception and that confirm the dangers that we have denounced on various occasions,” organizations stressed.
Among these dangers they pointed out “mass arrests of young people in vulnerable situations who are not subject to judicial control, indiscriminate searches of the population living in poverty, and indefinite isolation and incommunicado detention of persons deprived of liberty, as well as undue restrictions on their right to food. and health”.
This Wednesday a package of criminal reforms came into force that toughen the penalties against gang members and allows minors to be tried as adults.
The Government of El Salvador has declared that these actions, plus the 3,000 arrests in recent days, are a “war against the gangs”, as Bukele’s predecessor, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, did (2014-2019).
Dozens of relatives of those captured — mostly women — seek information and denounce some human rights abuses.
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Among the organizations that signed the statement are the Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil), the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) and the Washington Office on Latin American Affairs (WOLA).
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