El Salvador

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2012/01/20121983733325545.html

El Salvador 541 - A plague of fungal skin diseases, untreated deadly infections, constant threats of tuberculosis epidemics, people fed with their own hands, extreme overcrowding and children locked up with their mothers. This is what the human rights observers reported during the first few months of the extraordinary measures implemented across prisons for El Salvador’s gang members. - The Attorney General’s Office is the only institution that has access to these prisons under these extraordinary measures. The government has decided to deny access to the public, including the International Committee of the Red Cross. - “The fact that they are served food in their hands is…inhumane. The overcrowding…all in the same cell for 24 hours! It’s like…the torture facilities of the past. You would think that all of that was over. You would think that Hitler was a thing of the past. Once the doors are opened, what will we see?” - The statement was from Raquel Caballero, of El Salvador’s Attorney General’s Office for Human Rights (Procuradora para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos – PDDH), who was left speechless as she tried to describe what she saw in the prisons where the government’s extraordinary measures have been implemented. - In April 2016, the government implemented extraordinary measures for seven Salvadoran prisons where only gang members are detained. The aim was to isolate certain prisoners with the understanding that they were the momentum driving gang criminality. In order to do this, the government eliminated family visitation; confined prisoners to their cells 24 hours a day; halted the delivery of hygiene products like soap, toilet paper and toothpaste; suspended judicial proceedings and restricted maximum-security prisoners from being released to hospitals. restricted street clothing and electronics....