The government has been guilty of abuses such as torture and enforced disappearances during years of gang repression, rights group says.
Authorities in El Salvador have committed “systematic” human rights violations to tackle gang violence, including torture and enforced disappearances, since the declaration of a national emergency last year, Amnesty International said.
The rights group said on Monday that the Salvadoran government’s “state of exception” – first declared in March 2022 by President Nayib Bukele and extended periodically since then – has also led to widespread violations of due process.
“The deaths of 132 people in state custody, arbitrary detention, massive criminal prosecution and the arbitrary detention of tens of thousands of people are incompatible with an effective, fair and sustainable public safety strategy,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty’s Americas Director. International. , a statement said.
“The systematic violation of human rights and the dismantling of the rule of law are not the answer to the problems the country is facing.”
Under the state of emergency, which was declared after a deadly weekend of gang violence in the Central American country, the government suspended certain civil liberties, including the right to a lawyer and the right to assemble.
More than 66,000 people have been detained under the policy, and some Salvadoran families say their loved ones have been detained despite not being affiliated with gangs.
Rights groups and observers have also warned that the state of emergency is eroding democracy and civil rights in El Salvador for a plan that could be a quick fix rather than a long-term solution to crime and gang activity.
However, such criticism has done little to deter Bukele.
In March, El Salvador extended the state of emergency for the 12th time, giving the government broad discretion to make arrests, access private communications and deprive Salvadorans of their right to a lawyer.
The text of the legislative decree states that the “war against gangs waged by the government has given the Salvadoran people a sense of security”.
Bukele also recently unveiled a new mega prison to hold people detained under the state of emergency. “This will be their new home, where they will live for decades, all mixed, unable to harm the population any more,” the president said in February.
On Monday, Amnesty International warned that Salvadorans who “live in the most impoverished areas and have historically suffered the scourge of gangs” are criminalized under the policy, while there is little transparency or redress for those wrongly imprisoned.
Human rights violations are carried out in a “widespread and persistent” manner with the support of various branches of the state, the group said.
“We watch with horror as overcrowding and torture continue to claim the lives of innocent people, with the complicity of all the institutions that are supposed to uphold their rights,” said Guevara-Rosas.
“The dehumanization suffered by thousands of unjustly imprisoned people is unbearable.”