Nelson Hernández, a North Carolina hip-hop artist who worked in the U.S. installing floors, was arrested in January while visiting El Salvador for his wedding.

The Bukele administration barred the International Monetary Fund from publishing its yearly report on the “economic situation and policy strategy” of El Salvador. It was striking, given that the country is looking to spur the negotiation of a debt program.

The same day that Nayib Bukele staged a military siege of the gang bastion Soyapango, Xiomara Castro deployed police and military in 162 of Honduras’ most marginalized urban communities after decreeing a state of exception. The suspension of constitutional guarantees goes even further than in the Salvadoran model.

On Thursday, El Salvador’s Independence Day, President Nayib Bukele announced that he will seek re-election when his five-year term ends in 2024, defying a constitutional ban on consecutive re-election. Earlier that day, as the government held a military parade, thousands marched in the capital against Bukele and his policies.

Leaked court documents reveal that wrongful arrests in El Salvador are on the rise as the country courses its fifth month in a state of exception that suspended multiple constitutional rights.

Bukele’s government told Wall Street investors in March that it hasn’t totally ruled out a deal with the IMF to avoid default, offering backup plans. All scenarios involve massive credits from regional development banks and somehow squeezing more tax revenue.

A Supreme Court magistrate appointed by the ruling party was years ago the attorney of “Diablo de Hollywood,” the head of the Mara Salvatrucha. The detail, undisclosed when he was appointed last year, was revealed when the judge recused himself from ruling on the gang leader’s pending extradition to the United States.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s congress granted a request Wednesday by President Nayib Bukele for a second extension of the country’s anti-gang emergency decree.

El Faro obtained audio files of conversations between a senior Bukele official and the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), revealing that the covert negotiations with the gangs fell apart after MS-13 considered the surprise arrest of a group of its leaders a violation of the agreement they brokered in 2019 for a reduction in homicides.

Despite unprecedented peacetime policing operations that led to 27,000 arrests in two months, gangs continue to extort businesses as an expression of their territorial control. Human rights groups and the press have also documented at least five in-custody deaths during President Nayib Bukele’s state of exception.

El Salvador, in Brief: The government not only extended the politically popular state of exception for another month on Sunday; it also seized the moment to temporarily exempt security spending from legal oversight. Despite widespread flak from human rights groups as evidence accumulates of police abuses and arbitrary detentions, Bukele’s party passed legislation to allow […]

Some National Civilian Police commanders in El Salvador have been pressuring their officers to meet daily arrest quotas as part of the government’s crackdown on street gangs that have yielded more than 10,000 arrests, a police union said Tuesday.

Latino Rebels Radio: April 7, 2022

On Tuesday, President Nayib Bukele ordered changes to the Penal Code that press advocates warn censor journalism about gangs and would impede news outlets from questioning the official narrative on issues such as security policy and the government’s secret negotiations with the gangs.

El Salvador’s Congress, pushing further in the government’s dramatic crackdown on gangs, has authorized prison sentences of 10 to 15 years for news media that reproduce or disseminate messages from the gangs, alarming press freedom groups.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for new police officers and soldiers, President Nayib Bukele said that if the gangs “unleash a wave of crimes, we are going to cut off food in the prisons.”

Amid an ongoing state of exception in El Salvador, the Bukele-controlled legislature held its second emergency session in five days to approve sweeping increases in criminal sentences for gang leaders and underage members alike.

Security forces intensified operations against El Salvador’s street gangs Tuesday with mass arrests, the cordoning off of neighborhoods and house-by-house searches under a state of emergency that has raised concerns among some organizations it could open the door to human rights abuses.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s congress granted President Nayib Bukele’s request to declare a state of emergency early Sunday amid a wave of gang-related killings over the weekend.

The U.S. suspects that a top MS-13 leader known as “Crook” was freed from prison despite an extradition request on transnational narco-terrorism charges. Salvadoran courts have for months refused to extradite senior MS-13 leaders to the U.S.

El Salvador has released another woman imprisoned for aggravated homicide who after suffering an obstetric emergency was accused of aborting her pregnancy in a country where abortion under any circumstances is banned.