Salvadoran Parliament Approves New Extension of the State of Emergency
Salvadoran soldiers patrol the streets, 2024. X/ @radioyskl
November 6, 2024 Hour: 6:29 am
The right to legal defense for detainees and the inviolability of telecommunications will remain suspended.
On Tuesday night, the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly, dominated by the ruling party Nuevas Ideas (NI), approved the thirty-second extension of the “State of Emergency.”
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The extension of the state of emergency was approved without debate by 57 out of 60 legislators. It means that for another 30 days, the right to legal defense for detainees, the inviolability of telecommunications, and the maximum administrative detention of three days will remain suspended. This new extension is set to last until December 6.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele requested a further extension of the state of emergency, justifying it by stating that the state still needs to carry out an extraordinary intervention to counter the threat of criminal groups regrouping, stemming from remaining gang members in neighborhoods and communities.
His administration claims that the states of emergency have enabled it to eradicate gangs and reduce the homicide rate in this Central American nation.
However, a group of 2,500 members of the Armed Forces and the National Police were deployed on October 28 to a densely populated neighborhood in El Salvador to implement a “security cordon” due to the alleged presence of gang members. This security cordon adds to others set up in different areas of the Central American country to fight gangs in the context of the state of emergency.
This measure was approved following the killing of about 80 people over a weekend in late March 2022. With over 83,100 detentions, the state of emergency has become the government’s primary and only approach against gangs, which also helped President Bukele secure immediate reelection, despite constitutional prohibition.
Meanwhile, various human rights organizations have received more than 6,400 reports of human rights violations, mainly due to arbitrary detentions and torture, and report over 300 deaths of detainees in state custody, most showing signs of violence.
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
