El Salvador Congress passes law taxing foreign donations to NGOs
The law will come to effect eight days after it has been published in the official gazette.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
3 days ago
- The Independent
El Salvador extends pretrial detention for 80,000 gang suspects 2 more years
El Salvador's Congress voted Friday to give government prosecutors two more years to hold the more than 80,000 people swept up under the state of emergency while they investigate alleged ties to the country's gangs. The Congress, controlled by President Nayib Bukele's New Ideas party and its allies, voted 57 to 3 in favor of extending the period of pretrial incarceration. Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said that with the extension authorities could carry out more complete investigations, present solid evidence and win sentences against members of organized crime. Lawmakers also gave the government the option of extending for another 12 months if necessary. Improved public safety under the state of emergency has swelled Bukele's popularity, but the suspension of some constitutional rights and general lack of due process has drawn criticism within and outside El Salvador. Opposition lawmaker Claudia Ortiz of the VAMOS party, said Friday it showed the government's 'inability to deliver justice.' 'They've had more than two years to do a serious investigation of all of the cases and be able to take all of those detained to trial, and since they haven't done it on time, the (National) Assembly has to do a favor for the Attorney General's Office,' she said. Following an outburst of gang violence in March 2022, Bukele asked lawmakers for extraordinary powers to respond to a gang massacre. Among the rights the Congress agreed to suspend were the maximum time period take a prisoner before a judge, as well as fundamental protections like access to a lawyer. Since then, more than 88,000 people have been arrested for alleged ties to gangs, with 90% still awaiting trial. In July 2023, the Congress voted to give the government 24 months to prosecute a group of gang members. That period is up this month on Aug. 25. Delgado said the plan is to carry out hundreds of mass trials as they've been able to sort the accused into groups. 'This big quantity of people isn't going to be judged in one or two weeks,' Delgado said. 'It takes a considerable amount of time for the judges to receive the evidence that links each one of them and then later issue verdicts according to each corresponding law.'
Reuters
4 days ago
- Reuters
El Salvador's Bukele swears in military captain as education minister
SAN SALVADOR, Aug 14 (Reuters) - El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele on Thursday swore in Karla Trigueros, a captain with the Central American nation's armed forces, as education minister. "If we want to build the country we deserve, we must break paradigms," Bukele said in a post on X. In the post, Bukele included photos of the ceremony where Trigueros, who is also a medic, appeared in military uniform.
Reuters
4 days ago
- Reuters
El Salvador may extend detention of alleged gang members until 2027
SAN SALVADOR, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Suspected gang members imprisoned under a sweeping Salvadoran state of emergency imposed since March 2022 could be held for another two years without trial under action taken by a congressional security committee on Thursday. The changes to the Central American country's Law Against Organized Crime aim to give prosecutors until August 2027 to build cases against those detained since then. Lawmakers from the ruling party majority who voted to advance the measure said it was necessary to gather evidence and streamline legal proceedings against alleged gang members and prevent detainees from being released. The proposal, introduced 10 days before a previous two-year deadline was set to expire, still requires a vote by the full legislature, which like the commission is controlled by the ruling party and very likely to pass the proposal. "This committee will continue working to combat crime and the gangs, ensuring these terrorist groups never return to our streets," said Caleb Navarro, a lawmaker from the ruling Nuevas Ideas party. Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado called the measure advanced on Thursday a "very important" tool, enabling the country's 44 organized crime judges to process roughly 600 collective cases involving the 88,750 people arrested. In July 2023, El Salvador's Congress approved group trials for the tens of thousands of people arrested during President Nayib Bukele's crackdown on criminal gangs, which has given the country one of the world's highest incarceration rates. Opposition politicians and rights groups said group trials risked depriving detainees of their right to due process and their individual presumption of innocence.
