The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has defended the construction of a new prison with the capacity to accommodate some 40,000 prisoners and has affirmed that this mega-work, erected in just seven months, “is a fundamental piece to completely win the war against gangs”.
Bukele has made the fight against these groups one of his main government mantras, to the point that he no longer hesitates to classify El Salvador as “the safest country in the Americas”, as a result of the reduction in the homicide rate.
“How did we do it? Putting criminals in jail. Is there space? Now yes,” said the president, in a series of messages on Twitter in which he assured that the inmates of this new Terrorism Confinement Center did not they will neither be able to escape nor “give orders from within”. “A work of common sense”, he has added.
The Salvadoran government has defended these facilities from criticism from organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), which considers that the center fails to comply with United Nations international regulations on the treatment of inmates.
The emergency regime decreed in El Salvador in March 2022 to combat the wave of homicides, for allegedly giving wings to excesses by the authorities, has also raised doubts among international observers.
