The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, affirmed yesterday that another 2,000 gangs were transferred to a new high-security prison, with a capacity for 40,000 members of these criminal structures and, according to the president, “the largest in America.”
“This day, in a new operation, we transferred the second group of 2,000 gang members to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT),” the president posted on Twitter, adding that “there are already 4,000 gang members who inhabit the most criticized prison in the world.” .
Until Bukele’s publication, the security authorities of the Central American country had not reported on the movement of prisoners.
The first transfer took place at the end of February and relatives of detainees under the emergency regime in force since the end of March moved to the outskirts of the prisons.
Bukele inaugurated the CECOT at the end of January and the Minister of Public Works, Romeo Rodríguez, said that “it would become the largest prison in all of America” ??and that “it would be impossible for a prisoner to leave” the 23-hectare facility. The construction of this prison occurred amid criticism from the opposition, which has pointed out a lack of transparency, mainly due to the approval in the Legislative Assembly, dominated by the ruling party, of a law that allowed bypassing the usual controls in state works.
In early March, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said that the maximum security prison is really a “concentration camp.” This statement generated a series of message exchanges between Bukele and Petro on Twitter. Amnesty International (AI) expressed its “deep concern” about this new prison in El Salvador, given that “the construction of this new prison could mean the continuity and escalation of these abuses.”
According to official figures, under the emergency regime, approved last March after an escalation of murders, more than 65,000 people have been detained in El Salvador, whom the government accuses of being gang members and of whom they have been released to more than 3,300.
Salvadoran humanitarian organizations and the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office (PDDH) have received more than 7,900 complaints of abuses, most for arbitrary detentions.
Despite the allegations of human rights violations within the framework of the emergency regime and the transfer of prisoners, the Salvadoran president has 91% support from the population, according to a recent survey by the newspaper’s Investigation Unit The printing press.
