All articles tagged with #mega prison
Venezuelans expelled from the US to El Salvador's notorious mega-prison, Cecot, faced severe human rights abuses including torture, beatings, and inhumane conditions, raising concerns about state-sanctioned violence and the treatment of detainees, with some finally returning home after a prisoner swap deal.
Over 12,000 suspected gang members are confined in El Salvador's Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), a mega prison where conditions are dire. Inmates plead for food and medicine for the terminally ill, while human rights groups compare the prison to concentration camps. The prison, which opened in January, holds bitter rivals from the MS-13 and Calle 18 gangs, with history showing their propensity for violence. Inmates sleep on metal cabins, share limited facilities, and are regularly beaten by guards. The prison is part of President Nayib Bukele's campaign to crack down on gang violence, but human rights groups have criticized the regime for repression and violations of human rights.
El Salvador has added another 2,000 inmates to its mega-prison, which has a 40,000-person capacity and promises that prisoners will "never return" to the streets. The government has arrested roughly 65,000 suspected gang members since approving emergency powers in March 2022, and the prison is already at 10% of its maximum capacity just one month after opening. The right to association is suspended, and police don’t have to inform someone being arrested of their rights. Non-governmental organizations have tallied several thousand human rights violations and at least 80 in-custody deaths of people arrested during the state of exception.
El Salvador has added another 2,000 inmates to its mega-prison, which has a 40,000-person capacity and promises that prisoners will "never return" to the streets. The government has arrested roughly 65,000 suspected gang members since approving emergency powers in March 2022, which also allowed it to approve and build the mega-prison. The prison is one of Latin America’s largest, with 37 guard towers and eight cellblocks that will be "impossible to escape." However, human rights organizations have tallied several thousand human rights violations and at least 80 in-custody deaths of people arrested during the state of exception.