Bukele at the UN: "Some say we arrested thousands, but I would say we freed millions"

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele praised the results of his crackdown on gangs and transnational criminal organizations during a speech Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “In El Salvador, we prioritized the safety of our honest citizens over the comfort of criminals. Some say we have imprisoned thousands, but the reality is that we have freed millions. The good people now live freely, without fear, with their freedoms and human rights fully respected,” Bukele said. “Once a country abandons the principles that make it free, it is only a matter of time before it loses its freedom altogether,” he said. “The consequences are unfolding before our eyes. We can see them in some so-called first world cities, where stores have to keep their products behind locked glass doors to prevent theft. And I’m not even talking about expensive products, but about simple things like chocolate or razor blades. In other cities, the streets no longer belong to the people, but have fallen into the hands of the homeless, gangs, organized crime and drugs.” “You can’t claim to be a free world when your people aren’t even free to walk the streets without fear of being harassed, robbed or murdered,” he said. “We are also witnessing the erosion of freedom of expression in real time. Just a decade ago, the West was the bastion of free speech, and now it is being lectured by those who used to speak their minds. The world’s largest social media platforms have been forced to censor their users at the behest of their governments. Citizens of Western countries have been arrested for sharing posts on social media. Government parties have tried to marshal their political opposition. These are not conspiracy theory accusations, they are verifiable and widely documented facts.” “Salvadorians recognize these symptoms of decline because we have all experienced them. We have lived through the stages of our nation’s demise, and we are seeing those same stages again, but this time on a global scale.” “We don’t want to tell other countries what to do… We can only give a word of warning from a friend who has been through the same dark times and has fought the battle of his life to get out of them,” he said. You can watch the full speech with English translation here: