As part of President Nayib Bukele's ongoing crusade against gangs in El Salvador, the government opened the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, which will soon mark its second anniversary. In this maximum-security facility, imprisoned gang members - who spoke to AFP under the watchful eye of prison guards - are well aware they will "never leave." But rights activists say thousands rounded up under a state of emergency are innocent.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00because one has suffered, has lost my family, has lost that we have not lost ourselves in
00:11prison.
00:12And today we are in a maximum security prison, so we already know that there will be no way
00:17out for us.
00:18There are tattoos that you can see that change, they are the letters, the numbers, many of
00:44them have clowns.
00:45If I support the gang, as a gang member, I do not agree with what they do, but for the
01:12people of El Salvador, I say that it is the best, because we have not been good people.
01:42We have the control here, we give way to the next button.
02:03A midwife enters here, the secot does not leave again.
02:08For any intervention that we do, we have the majority of criminality.
02:13When you are already in a prison, you will not be able to do anything.