In the hell of El Salvador’s prisons, where ANYONE can be locked up with a phone call and packed together like sardines with gangsters

IN El Salvador, a single phone call can land you in a cell with iron bars, along with murderous gangsters.

The country has been plagued by armed violence for centuries, and in the past two years an aggressive policy has been implemented to imprison suspected gang members for life.

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Incredible footage shows thousands of violent skinhead gangsters from the country’s largest gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, crammed into a massive, inescapable prison.

Photos show rows and rows of prisoners sitting with their hands behind their shaved heads in the high-tech prison.

Other images show gang members stripped naked and wearing only white shorts as they run through the facility.

Meanwhile, prison guards armed with assault rifles guard the prisoners.

Amnesty International’s Irene Cuellar spoke to The Sun about the state of emergency in El Salvador and mass incarceration.

She said, “Right now we have the highest incarceration rate in the country, in the world.

“In El Salvador, almost 2 percent of the population is in prison.”

Irene explained that among the prisoners there are also people who are serving life sentences without any evidence that they were involved in a crime. This is thanks to anonymous tips.

She continued: “Most of them have not been found guilty. They are still in the legal status of pre-trial detention.”

Salvadorans may fear enemies, as it has become common for people to be arrested and thrown in jail for “criminal involvement.”

In May 2022, the government of President Nayib Bukele set up a fear-mongering hotline so people could anonymously submit tips to “bring more terrorists to justice.”

The National Police are investigating the reports and using intelligence to determine whether the person named is or has been a so-called ‘collaborator’ of the two main gangs.

Civil society organizations such as Amnesty International claim that anonymous accusations have led to wrongful imprisonments.

This is even worse in poorer communities, where gangs rule the roost.

Irene explained that wrongful imprisonment “fails to address the problem with a more comprehensive approach that addresses the underlying causes of insecurity and crime.”

She said: “We have interviewed many people who have been in prison and are now under investigation but have been remanded in custody.

“What they told us is the inhumane conditions they are in prison.

“The families, I mean, they have no chance to contact them. Some of them spend two, three months trying to find out which prison their family is in.

“Because this family is also really deep. The people who are stuck are people who live in poverty, so this is a model that criminalizes poverty.”

El Salvadoran authorities have even acknowledged that 6,000 prisoners were innocent in 2023 and claim they have since been released.

According to the Legal Aid organization, there are still 14,000 people in prison who have never been linked to a gang.

Some so-called innocent people are constantly reported to the regime, and do not even receive an individual trial.

Due to prison overcrowding, the Salvadoran parliament and the New Ideas party have resorted to transitional measures and reforms of the law against organized crime.

This means that class actions are being held, sometimes trying as many as 900 prisoners at the same time, including those who have not been proven to have committed a crime.

Amnesty International claims this is a violation of human rights.

Irene said: “The strategy that the government has come up with to speed things up is to hold large-scale trials.

“They’re talking about studies where 200 to 900 people participate in one study.

“(Amnesty International) cannot imagine how people can adequately exercise their right to defense.”

After the state of emergency was declared in March 2022, more than 1,000 minors were placed in pre-trial detention within a few months, 21 of whom were only 12 or 13 years old.

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This is because when the state of emergency was declared, a law was passed that lowered the age of criminal responsibility for children accused of gang-related crimes from 16 to 12.

Amnesty International reported that officers would come into poor neighborhoods and “arrest anyone they can,” because innocent people lived next door to gang members.

Irene said, “They were victims of gangs. They lived in the same communities where the gang members used to live.

“That’s why they had control over it.

“Police and military came into the poor neighborhoods, assuming everyone was a gang member.”

El Salvador has been under a state of emergency for over two years, with no end in sight.

PRISON STATE

Since March 2022, El Salvador has also declared a state of emergency to combat gang violence after decades of war, bloodshed and terror caused by the same gangs that rule Honduras.

Before the state of emergency was declared, a truce was broken between MS-13, Barrio 18 and the government, leading to the bloodiest day in decades, with 60 people shot dead.

In response, entire cities were raided by the military and 70,000 people – 2 percent of the population and 7 percent of the male population between the ages of 14 and 29 – were put behind bars.

Due to mass arrests, El Salvador has the highest number of prisoners in the world, but violence has also fallen.

This unforgiving approach is at the heart of President Nayib Bukele’s hugely popular but controversial “war on gangs” to end what he calls “terrorist rule” over his state.

The new leader, 43, calls himself “the coolest dictator in the world” and has helped halve the country’s murder rate, which is still, remarkably, the highest in the world.

He turned prisons that were “gang headquarters” into nightmares.

The inhuman and degrading conditions in which alleged gang members live are part of his intention to sow fear at the heart of their criminal networks.

For some, their only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time or having ever gotten gang-related tattoos.

Human rights groups suspect that between 10,000 and 15,000 innocent people were involved in Bukele’s attack.

CECOT PRISON HELL

Shocking images show extremely violent gang members packed like sardines into the world’s “largest” mega-prison, reserved for the highest-ranking members of MS-13 and Barrio 18.

The 57-hectare Cecot prison, from which no one can escape, can house up to 40,000 gangsters, locked up in cells with a capacity of 156. These cells are guarded day and night by 850 police officers and soldiers.

What is known about the dire conditions inside has led to criticism from human rights groups, especially given government assurances that those who go inside will never come out again.

“Let all NGOs working for human rights know that we are going to eradicate these bloody murderers and their accomplices.

“We put them in prison and they never come out.

“We will heal our country and eliminate this plague completely. Take your failed recipes elsewhere,” President Bukele responded to objections on X/Twitter in May 2023.

By imprisoning criminals on an archipelago 250 kilometres off the coast, the government hopes to cut off the snake’s head and sever their connection to the outside world.

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