SAN SALVADOR (AP) — El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and his party are pushing forward a constitutional reform that would permit life prison sentences in a country that has imprisoned more than 1% of its population in its war on gangs.
The reform was proposed on Tuesday before El Salvador’s legislature, which is firmly in the control of Bukele’s party. The measure is likely to pass.
It comes after Bukele has pushed forward rounds of constitutional reforms, which have been sharply criticized for chipping away at checks-and-balances and undermining the country’s delicate democracy.
“We will see who supports this reform and who dares to defend the idea that the Constitution should continue prohibiting murderers and rapists from remaining in prison,” Bukele wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.
In August, the government pushed through another reform that would do away with presidential term limits, paving the way for Bukele to stay in power indefinitely. Legal experts widely consider Bukele’s second term, that began in 2024 to violate the constitution, which prohibits consecutive reelection.
The proposed reform builds upon other measures Bukele has taken to combat El Salvador’s gangs, including a state of emergency that began in March 2022 following a wave of gang violence.
The measure, which is meant to be temporary but has been extended for nearly four years, suspends key constitutional rights and has led to around 91,300 people being detained.
Human rights groups have documented cases of arbitrary detentions for years, with one group even alleging before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that the vast majority of those imprisoned under the state of emergency were arbitrarily detained. Bukele sharply criticized the allegation, but he has said that 8,000 innocent people have been released.
Bukele’s government has also gone after its enemies, detaining critics and activists, and increasingly forcing journalists and opposition voices to choose between exile or prison.
Those detained under the state of exception are held in prisons with little evidence, under vague accusations by authorities, and with very little access to due process. Prisoners are often judged in mass trials and lawyers regularly lose track of where their clients are.
Officials in Bukele’s government have previously vowed that gang members detained “will never return” to the streets.
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