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Thousands of inmates were moved to El Salvador’s new mega-prison on Friday, raising the suspicion of some human rights activists, who noted the theatrical opening of what may be the world’s largest prison came shortly after US prosecutors accused government officials of cutting deals with gang leaders to have.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele spent the weekend sharing pictures of inmates being transferred to the mega-prison running crouched, wearing white shorts, their feet and chest bare. The video contains ominous music and the jangling chains of the prisoner.
“They’re not scary anymore, are they?” Bukele said about Twitter on Saturday. Criminals, he added, stop spreading fear once they lose the protection of “the corrupt politicians and international organizations who fund and defend them.”
The mega prison can hold up to 40,000 prisoners, Bukele called last year. It is officially called the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism and has been unveiled earlier this month. El Salvador’s crackdown on crime has been met with allegations of indiscriminate arrests and abuse by the police.
“This new mega-prison is a symbol of Bukele’s insane security policies,” said Juan Pappier, acting deputy director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch. said the Washington Post on Sunday.
Pappier said Bukele’s timing of bringing the inmates into the mega-prison was suspect. It comes after the US Department of Justice on Thursday unsealed an indictment against suspected leaders of the MS-13 gang, accusing senior Salvadoran officials of negotiating with criminal groups to stem the violence.
“There’s every reason to believe that the timing of the prison transfer was just about controlling the narrative and presenting an ‘iron fist’ interpretation of Bukele that doesn’t paint the whole picture,” Pappier said.
After Bukele won the presidency in February 2019, gangs struck deals with the government to reduce the number of public killings, “which politically benefited the government of El Salvador,” according to the Justice Department indictment. It appeared the homicide rate was falling, “whereas in fact MS-13 leaders continued to authorize homicides in which the bodies of the victims were buried or otherwise hidden.”
In return, the gangs were promised less restrictive prison conditions, the early release of some leaders and a refusal to extradite prisoners to the United States, the indictment added.
The United States has accused Bukele’s government of having previously negotiated with the country’s gangs, a tactic used by other Salvadoran presidents. Bukele has denied the allegations, instead promising “a war on gangs”.
After a spike in killings last year, when at least 92 people were killed in four days, according to Human Rights Watch, Bukele declared a state of emergency for the entire country. Mass arrests of suspected gang members followed. Even before the arrests began, El Salvador had one of the highest incarceration rates.
At least 60,000 suspected gang members were arrested last year. According to Amnesty International, the number includes hundreds of children held in juvenile detention centers. Human rights defenders have said El Salvador has seen widespread human rights abuses since the state of emergency began.
“Security forces have arrested hundreds of Salvadorans with no ties to gangs, held them incommunicado, tortured some in prison and subjected detainees to Kafkian trials that make it difficult if not impossible for them to defend themselves,” Pappier said.
Osiris Luna Meza, director of El Salvador’s correctional system, said during a video tour of the mega prison earlier this month that there are factories inside where inmates are being forced to work.
The mega-prison is a “key piece in the war on the gangs,” Meza said during the tour, which featured pitch-dark isolation cells that the prison official described as one of its most important parts.
“This will be their new home, where they will live for decades, confused, unable to do any more harm to the population,” Bukele said Friday.
The mega prison has more than twice the capacity of Rikers Island. Although the prison was built on 165 acres in a remote part of the country, the planned inmate density is nearly three times that of Rikers Island, according to data collected by The Post.
“While the prison is likely to help maintain the president’s very high popularity, the packing of tens of thousands of inmates is unlikely to bring safety to Salvadorans in a sustainable manner,” Pappier said.
Less than a month ago, a leaked database from El Salvador’s Ministry of Public Security uncovered widespread violations of due process, severe prison overcrowding and police deaths In custody, Human Rights Watch and the rights group Cristosal reported.
The reasons for what Human Rights Watch called “indiscriminate arrests” included tattoos, living in gang neighborhoods and looking like criminals, the group said in a report released in December.
Despite the mass arrests and deaths, Bukele remains popular in the country. Human Rights Watch argues that it’s difficult to independently verify how much crime has actually decreased in the country.