Prisoners are Being Tortured to Death in El Salvador's Prisons

[Judi Lynn]

A new report describes what goes on within the Central American nation's prisons, which now hold 2 percent of the adult population.
EG
By Emily Green
May 31, 2023, 10:04am

The 23-year-old prisoner arrived at the hospital with broken feet and hands, and what looked like burn marks on his back. His corpse was delivered to his family in a closed casket. The medical examiner’s office determined the man died a “sudden death.”

Torture and death have become normal in El Salvador’s prisons under authoritarian President Nayib Bukele, according to a new report by the Salvadoran human rights group Cristosal. The report says that 153 people died in custody after being arrested under Bukele’s year-long crusade against gangs, including 47 this year, according to the new investigation.

The group said it has proof that at least 28 incarcerated people “died violently from torture, blows… asphyxiation by strangulation, injuries, among other causes.” It identified one case where the autopsy indicated the prisoner, who died from strangulation, may have been asphyxiated with a “rigid object” like a stick or baton.

The report is the most extensive reckoning to date of the human rights abuses that have occurred during Bukele’s campaign to dismantle the country’s violent street gangs—MS-13 and Barrio 18—which have long terrorized the country and fueled one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Even Bukele’s critics acknowledge that Bukele has largely succeeded, a feat that has made him wildly popular in El Salvador and an example to other Latin American countries enduring gang violence. But his crusade has come at a cost. Bukele has run roughshod over human rights, threatened critics with imprisonment, and kept El Salvador under what was supposed to be a temporary “state of emergency” for more than a year. The decree gives police free rein to arrest people without evidence, prohibits freedom of assembly, and denies citizens the right to legal counsel.

More:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88xqyb/el-salvador-prisons-gangs-torture

[Judi Lynn]

1. Inside the brutal El Salvador jail that's packed with 67,000 prisoners where 153 died

Four woman were among the 153 convicts to have died while in El Salvadorean state custody since officials began locking thousands of members of its powerful street gangs in mega jails across the Central American country

By Ryan Fahey
World News Reporter
11:23, 31 May 2023 UPDATED14:38, 31 May 2023

More than 150 convicts have died as a result of serious injury or torture in El Salvador since police began locking up thousands of gangsters in mega jails in March.

Earlier this year, the Central American country's President Nayib Bukele announced the controversial crackdown against the ruthless MS-13 and 18 gangs, which were making the streets a warzone.

The deaths revealed punitive policies carried out by guards and prison officials. The report stated that such actions would have required authorisation and backing by the highest-level security officials.

The government has not provided an official count of deaths among the incarcerated.

The special powers were approved by El Salvador's Legislative Assembly in March 2022, following a surge in gang violence. It suspended some fundamental rights, such as informing someone of their rights at the time of arrest and the reason for their, as well as having access to a lawyer.

More:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/inside-brutal-el-salvador-jail-30117554

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. Don't mean to downplay this but I'd imagine at least some of the deaths

are coming at the hands of other inmates.

Put a bunch of gang members together in mega-jails, you're going to have some that think someone else there knows too much.