San Salvador, January 9 (EFE). – The Congress of El Salvador decided on Tuesday evening, with a large pro-government majority, to extend for the twenty-second time an exceptional regime that suspends constitutional guarantees for a period of 30 days and that will be the holding of presidential and legislative elections on February 4 to mark.
More than 5.5 million citizens have been called upon to take part in the elections in which President Nayib Bukele is seeking immediate, disputed re-election despite allegations of unconstitutionality in the past.
The extension of the emergency regime, which has come into force since March 2022 following an escalation in gang killings, was approved with 67 votes from the 84 MPs and despite criticism from the opposition.
The new extension will come into force on January 12th, prior to its publication in the Official Journal, and will last until February 10th.
President of Congress and former secretary to Bukele, Ernesto Castro, said hours before the vote in response to questions from the press that the idea that this regime posed a threat to opponents or official propaganda “is a perception that only criminals have.” .
Claudia Ortiz, from the opposition Vamos party, who voted against the extension of the measure, assured that “the exceptional regime is not a security policy, but the abolition of the fundamental rights of Salvadorans and that differences must be clearly highlighted.”
“Yes, it is true that many gang members have been captured, but it is also true that many innocent people have been captured and hundreds of innocent people have died in government custody,” he said.
He noted: “It is true that there is a little more security now, but it is also true that the government authorities released a gang member and allowed him to escape to Mexico, that is also true.”
“The processes in court are not respected and a person can easily remain innocent or go missing in a penitentiary (prison), that is also true,” he added.
According to official data, since March 2022 there have been more than 75,100 arrests of people the government accuses of being gang members or collaborators, of which more than 7,000 people have been released on parole.
Humanitarian organizations register more than 6,000 victims of ill-treatment, primarily through arbitrary detention, but also through torture, warrantless searches and lack of communication with detained people.
According to the humanitarian organization Amnesty International (AI), this measure has led the country to one of the “worst human rights crises” since the end of the civil war (1980-1992), as state violence gradually replaces gangs.
The escalation in killings that led to the imposition of the emergency regime left more than 80 people dead in three days, and an investigation by local media El Faro claims that this increase was due to the alleged failure of an agreement between the government and the gangs be . .