2023-05-16 22:12:02
SAN SALVADOR (AP) — The government of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele asked Congress on Tuesday for a new extension of the emergency regime that suspends constitutional rights to continue with its heavy-handed policy once morest maras or gangs, which it accuses of the majority of the crimes that are committed in the Central American country.
This is the fourteenth extension requested by the government of that regime, which has been applied since the end of March 2022, amid concerns and complaints from human rights organizations.
“We have been following this strategy for more than a year and we have been able to see the results, which confirm that we are on the right path. We have restored to Salvadorans the hope of living in peace and moving calmly in the territory”, said the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustavo Villatoro, presenting the petition that is expected to be approved in the next few hours.
The authorities hold the gangs responsible for the majority of crimes registered in recent years in El Salvador and attribute an improvement in the figures on levels of criminal violence to their heavy-handed policy.
“The emergency regime must continue, it provides us with the constitutional and legal tools that, today, with secondary laws we cannot have,” said Villatoro, accompanied by the Minister of National Defense, Vice Admiral René Francis Merino Monroy and the director of the National Police, Commissioner Mauricio Arriaza Chicas.
Human rights organizations have denounced repeated violations and abuses by the security forces and in prisons within the framework of the state of emergency, which suspends various constitutional rights, including the right of a person to be duly informed of their rights and the reasons for their detention, as well as the right to have the assistance of a lawyer.
In addition, it extends the term of preventive detention from 72 hours to 15 days and allows the authorities to intervene the correspondence and cell phones of those they consider suspicious.
According to the Constitution, the emergency regime must be approved for 30 days and can be extended, “if the circumstances that motivated it continue.”
The Humanitarian Legal Aid, an NGO, registers until May 10 the names of 114 people detained in penal centers who would have died in different hospitals due to alleged homicide or lack of medical attention.
According to that organization, 92% of the deceased did not belong to gangs and were victims of other inmates, guards, police and military. There are no official reports of the death of these people.
The NGO Cristosal has also reported 3,333 cases of complaints and 3,346 people who say their rights were violated during the emergency regime.
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