Congress of El Salvador approves new extension of emergency regime until June

The party in power New ideas (NI), from the president Nayib Bukelewith the support of allied formations in the Legislative Assembly of The SaviorThis Thursday approved the twenty-sixth expansion of the controversial but supported emergency regime, implemented to combat gangs.

With 57 votes, the Legislature, which recently took office in Congress and with a pro-government majority with 54 deputies out of 60, gave the green light to the extension of the emergency regime for another 30 days, without analysis or prior discussion, valid until the next June 9th.

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The initiative sent by Security Office highlights that the measure resulted in more than 79,900 arrests of people accused by authorities of being gang members or collaborators of the so-called ‘maras‘.

“There remain cells that persist in committing criminal acts, trying to regain their criminal strength. Therefore, it remains a security objective to combat and dismantle the criminal intentions of these terrorist groups.“, indicates the decree as justification for the new expansion.

The support of the Salvadoran population for the emergency regime, a measure that was in force for two years at the end of last March, was consolidated over time, driven in part by a lack of knowledge of the implications for human rights, according to the results. from a recently released survey.

According to data from the study carried out by the University Institute of Public Opinion at UCA (Iudop), 79.4% of respondents stated that Salvadorans are currently protected by the emergency regime, while this number was 48% when it was in force 6 months ago.

It also indicates that 87.3% of the population said they felt safer with this measure; When it was implemented 30 days ago it was 76.2%.

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However, humanitarian organizations have received more than 6,000 complaints of human rights violations, mainly due to arbitrary detention and torture, and report around 240 deaths of detainees in state custody.

Meanwhile, entities such as Amnesty International (AI) warn that gang violence has been replaced by state violence in impoverished communities.

The emergency regime measure, which became the main and only measure of the Government of Nayib Bukele against gangs, increased the popularity of the Salvadoran president and allowed him to be re-elected this year for a second consecutive term, despite a prohibition in the Constitution.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.