CNN<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Inmates never leave their sectors. Concrete side rooms can be used for legal consultations and court hearings via video. We see medical staff who provide any treatment needed, again, on-site. <\/p>\n
No visits from family or friends are allowed under the rules. Anyone arriving at the prison gives up all personal items and is physically searched and electronically scanned for any contraband. A thousand armed security personnel \u2014 guards, police and soldiers \u2014 are ready to respond to any threat from outside or inside. <\/p>\n
The prison itself is ringed by multiple electrified fences with 19 watchtowers surrounding the facility, built in isolation in a rural area away from any town. Checkpoints start before you see the buildings, with vehicles searched and identities verified. Cell signals vanished as we approached the prison\u2019s towering steel gate \u2014 the only way in, or out. <\/p>\n
Cecot was built in just seven months and opened in January 2023 to hold up to 40,000 inmates. For security reasons Garc\u00eda does not disclose the exact population, but he concedes that between 10,000 and 20,000 inmates are currently housed here. <\/p>\n
Bukele\u2019s state of emergency, declared in March 2022, has led to the arrest of at least 81,000 individuals \u2014 more than 1% of the Salvadoran population \u2014 a sweeping effort to root out gang influence. Bukele has admitted that some innocent people have been caught up in the net, with 7,000 of them already released, according to the government. He and his many supporters argue that such collateral damage is part of the difficult process of transforming a nation gripped by decades of corruption and violence. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy do we have the biggest incarceration (rate) in the world?\u201d Bukele asked in June. \u201cBecause we turned the world\u2019s murder capital into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere. The only way to achieve that is to arrest the murderers \u2026 we don\u2019t have a death penalty, so we have to imprison them all.\u201d\u202fIn early 2016, there was an average of a murder every hour in this country of just six million people. Now government statistics indicate there are more days without a homicide than with one, with a total of 104 killings reported in the first nine months of this year, a third of which were family violence. <\/p>\n
Critics inside and outside El Salvador question the veracity of the government\u2019s crime data and claimed success over the gangs. And even if true, they argue that Cecot\u2019s strict control and isolation of prisoners crosses the line into human right abuses. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe abuse starts with how they enter the prison and how they are kept inside \u2026 it\u2019s too extreme,\u201d says Juan Carlos S\u00e1nchez, program officer for the Due Process of Law Foundation, which campaigns for human rights and the rule of law across Latin America. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, the food of a person in state custody \u2014 like in Cecot \u2014 is a human right that cannot be deprived \u2026 it must be an adequate diet for them, not just to survive.\u201d <\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez adds there are concerns about due process \u2014 with Cecot used for both convicted men and those still going through the court system \u2014 and what he called \u201coppressive control.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat worries us the most, is these prisoners enter a penitentiary system, and they lose all contact with the outside world, including contact with their families \u2026 this impacts others, not just the prisoners,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnder these conditions, if they are ever out, they will not be rehabilitated \u2026 they will become a burden for the state, they will come out sick physically, mentally, they will come out with rage.\u201d <\/p>\n
Before we could even ask about those allegations, Cecot\u2019s Garc\u00eda offers: \u201cMuch has been said about Cecot and human rights violations, but you are seeing everything we do \u2014 medical assistance, ensuring they follow due process \u2026 the whole operation is based on strict respect for human rights.\u201d To him, Cecot\u2019s harsh restrictions are both justified and necessary, a \u201clast barrier\u201d between these criminals and\u202fcivil\u202fsociety. <\/p>\n
A government officer traveling with us is on her first visit to Cecot. A woman in her 20s, she reflects on her own past in El Salvador and a time \u2014 only a few years back \u2014 when carrying a cell phone in public or staying out after dark was unthinkable, inviting robbery or worse. \u201cI can breathe easier now,\u201d she tells us quietly as she surveys the caged men. <\/p>\n
As we climb one of the watchtowers overlooking Cecot, the sun dips low, casting the vast complex in shadow. The facility stretches beneath us, with rows of barbed wire, concrete walls, and looming guard towers fading into the hilly and lush terrain. Built to hold the darkest echoes of El Salvador\u2019s past, it feels like an isolated city, a world apart, where prisoners are erased from society. <\/p>\n
More convicts could be on the way to Cecot for the crackdown is not yet over. The Supreme Court overturned a constitutional ban on consecutive presidential terms in favor of Bukele and the president stood for and won an unprecedented second term earlier this year. The so-called temporary state of emergency is now more than two years old. <\/p>\n
After leaving the sterile and muted interior of Cecot, we join a force of approximately 2,500 police and soldiers patrolling a neighborhood in San Salvador flagged for potential remnants of gang activity. Heavily armed troops navigate the narrow, dimly lit alleys as families inside their homes sit seemingly unfazed, eating dinner or watching TV. <\/p>\n
We ask a man in his mid-50s how it feels to have such an imposing military presence right outside his door. Throwing on a t-shirt, Salvador Molinas tells us he, in fact, feels reassured by the soldiers, noting that this visible force was why he now felt it was safe enough to let his teenage sons go to school and social outings on their own. <\/p>\n
\u201cI see the men (soldiers) here with us and honestly this is good, we feel safe, this was missing before,\u201d says Molina, who lives with his boys and his mother. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have a son in college and another in the 7th grade and thanks to God, I let them go (to class) with confidence. I used to have to take the youngest to class and now he goes on his own by bus, and I don\u2019t have the fear that something will happen to him,\u201d he adds. <\/p>\n
\u201cSince the president took office, thank God, we\u2019ve lived calmly, something we didn\u2019t have with prior presidents.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bukele\u2019s crackdown on gang violence has garnered widespread support among Salvadorans, even as his methods remain divisive. Since taking office, he has consolidated control over the judiciary, silenced critics, and sidelined political opponents. Yet, most people we meet see these measures as vital for restoring safety \u2014 and Cecot has become a powerful symbol of this tough-on-crime approach. <\/p>\n
You cannot see the prison from the capital city, and the boisterous night streets are a jarring contrast to the gleaming but soulless interior of Cecot where silence and surveillance reign. <\/p>\n
But for so many Salvadorans, they go together. The prison where gang members lose all their power and autonomy has given them their freedom to live. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sunlight pours into the cavernous building. A towering ceiling and polished floor give the look of a railway station or airplane hangar. But the air is still and intensely claustrophobic. Down the long sides of the hall are large built-in cages, each containing dozens of men staring out. This is Cecot \u2014 El Salvador\u2019s Terrorism <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}