“Declare an exception regime throughout the national territory derived from serious disturbances to public order by criminal groups,” says the decree approved by a large majority in the unicameral parliament of the Central American country.
The proposal was approved with the votes in favor of 67 of the 84 deputies in the hemicycle.
Four deputies abstained and 13 were absent, the AFP news agency reported.
For 30 days, the Bukele government is empowered not only to suspend certain freedoms and guarantees, but also to deploy military and police in the streets.
The statement was criticized by the opposition, which calls the emergency regime “undemocratic” and “a violation of human rights.”
Bukele had asked the Legislative Assembly to decree the emergency regime, after the arrest of dozens of Mara Salvatrucha gang members, accused of perpetrating 62 homicides in a single day.
Faced with the wave of violence, the president asked the members of the Congress, controlled by the ruling party, to meet to “decree an exceptional regime today,” by which constitutional guarantees are annulled, in order to confront the gangs.
“This Saturday March 26 has closed with 62 homicides in the country,” the National Civil Police (PNC) said on Twitter.
“We won’t back down in this gang warWe will not rest until the criminals responsible for these events are captured and brought to justice,” he added.
According to the official balance, the central department of La Libertad registered 12 homicides, followed by the capital San Salvador and the department of Ahuachapán, in the west of the country, with nine each.
The rest of the murders are distributed in the remaining 11 departments of El Salvador.
In the plenary session this morning, the deputies also paid tribute to the victims of the gangs.
The Salvadoran Constitution establishes the exception regime, by which some established guarantees are suspended, it can be applied “in cases of war, invasion of territory, rebellion, sedition, catastrophe, epidemic or other general calamity, or serious disturbances of public order “.
The Police and the Army of El Salvador maintained an operation in which, according to the National Civil Police (PNC), several leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS) were arrested accused of being “responsible for the homicides registered in the last hours” .
Bukele urgently gathered his security team, along with the Attorney General, to address the issue, the PNC reported.
The president said that the Police and the Armed Forces “must let the agents and soldiers do their job and must defend them from the accusations of those who protect the gang members.”
Bukele asked the Prosecutor’s Office “to be effective with all the cases (of gang members that it processes) and warned that it will be aware of” the judges who favor criminals.
Last November, El Salvador suffered another spike in homicides, which in three days claimed the lives of some 45 people.
The Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs, among others, have some 70,000 members in El Salvador, more than 17,000 of them incarcerated, according to authorities, and operate through homicides, extortion, drug trafficking and other illegal activities.
El Salvador closed 2021 with 1,140 homicides, an average of 18 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, less than the 1,341 registered in 2020 and the lowest figure since the end of the civil war in 1992, according to official data.
Source: Ambito
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