Nayib Bukele cut rights to fight violence in El Salvador: does it work?

Soldiers arrived at dawn and shut down an entire city hall in San Salvador, the capital of The Saviourstop cars, force passengers off buses, and order men to lift up their shirts to show they weren’t wearing group tattoos

Many residents of the once gang-infested community watched the show of force with good eyes

“Before, gang members were in charge,” says María, a shop owner who asked that her last name not be published for security reasons. “Now, there are almost no gang members“.

When an outbreak of gang violence in March left more than 60 dead on the bloodiest day since the Salvadoran civil war 30 years ago, President Nayib Bukele’s government was quick to declare the state of exceptionwhich suspends fundamental constitutional rights.

The measure presumably it was temporary, a means of quickly restoring law and order and giving the government more leeway to tackle a nationwide crackdown against organized crime groups which, like the brutal MS-13 bandhad long terrorized this Central American nation.

police state

But more than eight months laterthe decree on the state of emergency is still in force, the military patrol the streets, mass arrests they are the order of the day the prisons are filled to the brim, bringing El Salvador closer to what it practically is a police state