El Salvador approves extending the state of exception for the fourth time to combat gangs

The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador approved this Friday the fourth extension of the state of emergency to combat gang members in the country, hours after the Government requested it from the Salvadoran Parliament.

With 67 votes in favor and 15 against, the state of emergency has been extended by the National Assembly throughout the national territory for another 30 days, until August 23.

"The effects of Legislative Decree 333 dated March 27 of this year are extended throughout the national territory for a period of thirty days from its publication in the Official Gazette and under the same conditions," reads the approved decree to which it has the Salvadoran newspaper 'El Mundo' had access.

Hours earlier, the president of the Legislative Assembly, Ernesto Castro, had announced that he had received the Security Cabinet of the Executive of El Salvador to vote on the extension of the state of emergency, which expired on July 24.

"The Salvadoran people must be certain that we are going to continue supporting the extension of the emergency regime," Castro said, in statements reported by the aforementioned newspaper.

During the period of the state of emergency, the Salvadoran government is empowered to suspend certain freedoms and guarantees to facilitate the deployment of the military and police in the streets and in the municipalities where these homicides occurred.

Specifically, this measure allows the suspension of the right of assembly throughout the country, the increase in the maximum detention from 72 hours to 15 days, the elimination of the right to defense and the elimination of the right not to be intervened in telecommunications, according to has detailed the aforementioned newspaper.

The Minister of the Interior, Gustavo Villatoro, has justified the extension of the state of emergency detailing some of the data that the measure has provided in these almost 120 days of the state of emergency, such as more than 46,000 arrests, 1,103 weapons seized, 1,314 vehicles seized, o 49,105 "portions" of drugs seized.

The state of exception, which with this new extension will reach 150 days, will last until "all gang members in El Salvador are behind bars," as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele assured in June.

"We are going to intensify this war against the gangs and if they thought that the force of the State had been unleashed on these criminals, then now they are really going to see what it means to unleash the force of the State on these criminals," he explained.