The Rule of Law Must Be Restored in El Salvador: OUDH
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele (L). X/ @realTigerAgency
April 29, 2025 Hour: 2:37 pm
President Bukele’s ‘State of Exception’ has resulted in over 390 deaths of citizens in the custody of state agents.
On Tuesday, the the Central American University’s Human Rights Observatory (OUDH) recommended the restoration of the rule of law in El Salvador, which, according to its director Gabriela Santos, “has been lost due to the suspension of constitutional rights” under a “State of Exception” targeting gangs.
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President Nayib Bukele’s “State of Exception” suspends constitutional guarantees such as the right to legal defense for detainees, the inviolability of telecommunications, and the maximum 3-day administrative detention period, which has been extended to 15 days.
Human rights organizations have denounced that this security policy has resulted in thousands of victims, mainly due to arbitrary detentions and deaths in prisons since its implementation in March 2022.
“From this observatory, we advocate for the restoration of the rule of law in the country, even though it may seem like this request is just a cry into the void,” said Santos during the presentation of a report on human rights violations in 2024.
“It is urgent to strengthen democratic institutions and to ensure the unrestricted respect for human rights, which is an obligation the State must fulfill in order to build a foundation for peaceful coexistence and a more just society. That is what we all want,” she added.
The OUDH director stated that “comprehensive, sustainable, and participatory policies must be developed—ones that do not involve the widespread and permanent suspension of human rights in the name of security, as is the case with the State of Exception.”
On April 1, the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly, controlled by Bukele’s New Ideas party, approved the 37th extension of the “State of Exception,” which has remained in effect uninterruptedly for three years, supposedly to combat gangs linked to drug trafficking.
Humanitarian organizations have received reports of at least 6,889 victims of human rights violations under this State of Exception, which operates through arbitrary detentions and has resulted in over 390 deaths of citizens in the custody of state agents.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: EFE
