U.N. : El Salvador - State of emergency

[Judi Lynn]

02 June 2023



FROM

Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: Marta Hurtado

LOCATION

Geneva

The repeated extension of the state of emergency in El Salvador – which has now been in force since March 2022 – is seriously concerning, especially given the consequences for people’s human rights.

We recognise the complex challenge El Salvador faces in tackling criminality, as well as the grave suffering inflicted by the country’s gangs, which for decades have murdered, raped, robbed and extorted the population.

However, weakening the rule of law and the integrity of the legal system by derogating from fair trial rights is not the answer.

At least 68,000 people have been jailed in El Salvador since the state of emergency came into force. Of these, at least 1,600 people are under 18 years of age.

According to a recent report by a leading NGO (Cristosal), at least 153 inmates have died in prison since the state of emergency was implemented – nearly half of them violently.

More:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-briefing-notes/2023/06/el-salvador-state-emergency

[Judi Lynn]

1. Human rights concerns intensify during El Salvador's unending State of Exception

JUNE 1, 2023 LABOUR HUB EDITORS

Just over a year ago, El Salvador imposed a ‘state of exception’, removing basic constitutional rights from its citizens, the prelude to the arrest of thousands of alleged gang members in the country. At the same time, the penalties for gang membership were drastically increased. In the year since, which has seen over 60,000 arrests, human rights organisations report multiple violations of rights, arbitrary detentions, abuses by security forces and forced disappearances. Just this week, the human rights organisation Cristosal reported widespread torture and death in state custody. This update on the situation is edited from the blogs of Tim Muth, who lives in the country.


A post-gang El Salvador?

El Salvador appears to be moving to a new phase, a phase where Mara Salvatrucha and the two factions of Barrio 18 no longer control large zones where millions of Salvadorans live, and where the State of Exception appears to be the new normal. What are the benefits being realized, the costs being suffered, and what questions are yet to be answered?

In 2016, the New York Times and El Faro estimated MS-13’s annual direct revenue in El Salvador at $31 million, primarily from extortion. Private bus companies by themselves estimated they were paying $26 million that year in extortion to the country’s main gangs.

Those tangible benefits from the breakup of gangs during the State of Exception must be evaluated in the context of its costs in the form of ongoing violations of human rights norms, the destruction of democratic institutions and judicial control, and the cost of running a country as a prison state.

On the night of January 31, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele broadcast nationally his tour of the country’s new mega-prison, designed to hold 40,000 prisoners, the government says. The new prison was needed to hold a portion of the more than 63,000 persons arrested in the country since March 2022 under the State of Exception, accused of being gang members or collaborators.

Almost all of the 63,000 persons imprisoned during the State of Exception have not been convicted of a crime and are not yet serving court imposed sentences. Under El Salvador’s Constitution, they are supposed to be presumed innocent. They have almost all been charged with being gang members or collaborators, but have only had minimal hearings where judges have declared they can be held in prison for six months or more while police investigate before their cases move to a trial phase.

More:
https://labourhub.org.uk/2023/06/01/human-rights-concerns-intensify-during-el-salvadors-unending-state-of-exception/