“We are here, persevering day after day”: shaved heads and sometimes fully tattooed faces, inmates of El Salvador’s new high-security prison, built for some 40,000 suspected criminals, testify to their confinement during a visit by organizations defense of human rights.
“We are trying to change with the help of God,” manages to say from his cell José Hurquilla Bonilla, an alleged member of the Barrio 18 gang, one of the main criminal organizations in the country.
T-shirt and white shorts, a mask across his face, like the dozens of other detainees behind him, he speaks during a visit on Monday by the government’s human rights commissioner, the Colombian Andrés Guzman, and Attorney General for the Defense of Human Rights Raquel Caballero.
“We are all trying here to change our lives with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, by trying to give a new image”, continues the man behind the bars of his cell during this visit in which he was able to take part. AFP.
Built on the orders of President Nayib Bukele, who in April 2022 declared a merciless “war” against criminal gangs, the Tecoluca penitentiary, 74 km southeast of the capital San Salvador, has eight prison buildings of 6,000 meters squares with reinforced concrete walls.
Each building has 32 cells of a hundred square meters where between 60 and 75 prisoners are crammed. Each cell has two sinks and two toilet bowls. Metal berths do not have mattresses.
Inaugurated at the beginning of the year, the prison accommodates 12,000 detainees, most of whom are suspected of belonging to the dreaded “maras”, these criminal gangs which have been raging for years in the country and whose main ones are Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha (MS- 13).
The conditions of detention in this center, equipped with high-tech surveillance and presented by the government as the “largest prison in America”, are however denounced by organizations for the defense of human rights.
After speaking with detainees from different cells, mediator Raquel Caballero reports their exchanges to AFP.
“They complain that there is not enough to eat” and “that they are bored, that they do nothing because they are locked up”, she adds.
Detainees hardly ever leave their cells, except to go to a videoconference room for court hearings or to be transferred to a dungeon, without windows or light, as punishment when they misbehave. They also cannot receive visits from relatives or relatives.
Commissioner Guzman reports for his part that the detainees assured not to run out of water, but asked for brooms and soap for cleaning their cell. Some said they received toothpaste, toothbrushes and soap on time, while others said they needed medicine.
A doctor assured that water samples were taken “daily” and analyzed in a laboratory to ensure quality.
“There is still a lot, a lot, a lot of work to do for them from a human rights point of view, but we are doing well”, assures Mr. Guzman, considering that the conditions of confinement are “worthy “.
The human rights NGO Cristosal denounced 174 deaths of detainees in the country on the occasion of the first anniversary of the exceptional regime decreed in March 2022. The UN has requested an investigation into these deaths.
“When you’re little, when you’re a child, anyone lies to you, coaxes you into making mistakes,” Nelson Velasquez, 37, also an alleged member of Barrio 18, told AFP. saying he has already served two sentences for different crimes for a total of 15 years, and is awaiting a new trial.
“When you grow up, most of the time you realize the error in which you have fallen”, continues the man with the fully tattooed skull, questioned in a courtyard of the prison, his hands tied.
The penitentiary was built to accommodate some of the more than 72,000 gang members detained under the emergency regime decreed by Congress at the request of President Bukele after a wave of 87 murders in just three days.
22/08/2023 20:50:13 – Tecoluca (Salvador) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP