El Salvador's Bukele releases father of soccer player from prison after son's plea on social media
El Salvador’s Bukele releases father of soccer player from prison after son’s plea on social media
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FILE - El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele speaks to the press at Mexico’s National Palace in Mexico City, March 12, 2019. Authorities confirmed on April 17, 2024 that Bukele released the father of a Salvadoran soccer player Marcelo “El Chiky” Díaz from prison after the athlete from Salvador’s national team published a plea for his release on social media, saying his father was wrongfully arrested as a suspected gang member on the way to see him play. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated 1:19 PM CDT, April 17, 2024
SAN SALVADOR (AP) — El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele released the father of a Salvadoran soccer player from prison after the athlete published a plea for his release on social media, authorities confirmed on Wednesday.
. . .
The arrest of Díaz’s father is part of a larger gang crackdown in the Central American nation that has gained Bukele a soaring popularity but has also fueled accusations of mass human rights abuses.
Following a wave of gang violence two years ago, Bukele in March 2022 announced a “state of emergency,” suspending many key constitutional
rights and locking up nearly 80,000 people — more than 1% of the El Salvador’s population — the government said were suspected as being part of a gang.
. . .
People are often arrested with little evidence of gang ties and locked up in prisons likened to torture chambers with little access to due process. In January, Bukele’s vice president Félix Ulloa told the Associated Press that the government had “made mistakes” in arresting people who committed no crimes. He said around 7,000 people arrested under the state of emergency had since been released from prisons.
Relatives often go years without seeing their loved ones, but on Wednesday — one day after the soccer player posted the letter on social media — authorities confirmed his father was set free.
More:
https://apnews.com/article/salvador-marcelo-el-chiky-diaz-bukele-gangs-crackdown-ba1608b905e6ad168a6061e3f0afa7dc
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(The photo with the article show a haggard Bukele, so changed from the image he tries to project as "The World's Coolest Dictator", as he describes himself. )
