After a controversial campaign to target crime caused the prison population to soar in El Salvador, the government transferred thousands of gang members to a giant prison holding 40,000 inmates.
“This will be their new home, where they will not be able to harm the population any more,” El Salvador’s President Nayeb Bukele wrote on Twitter.
About 2,000 imprisoned gang members were transferred to the “Terror Detention Center”, the official name for the largest prison in the Americas, on Friday.
In a video posted by Bukele, prisoners stripped of their white shorts, with their heads shaven, are seen running through the new prison to their cells, most of them heavily tattooed.
What is happening in El Salvador?
• Bukele asked his allies in Parliament to pass an exceptional state of emergency last year, extended several times since, with the aim of suspending some constitutional rights after a sharp increase in murders attributed to gangs.
• Since then, more than 64,000 suspects have been arrested in an anti-crime campaign.
• Under the state of emergency, arrests can be made without a warrant, the government can track private communications of citizens, and detainees no longer have the right to contact a lawyer.
• Human rights organizations say that innocent people have fallen victim to this policy, including dozens who have died in detention centres.
• But Bukele’s anti-gang campaign remains very popular with Salvadorans.
• The country’s security minister told Reuters that the campaign will continue “until all criminals are arrested.”
