El Salvador's Ongoing Crackdown on Gangs and Cartels.
El Salvador's congress has approved another extension of emergency rules allowing police to round up suspected members of street gangs. The crackdown has resulted in over 65,000 arrests and thousands of alleged rights abuses, but remains popular in a country where gangs once demanded protection payments with impunity. The government sent 2,000 more suspects to a huge new prison built especially for gang members, and the justice minister vowed that "they will never return" to the streets. Human rights groups say that there have been many instances of prisoner abuses and that innocent people have been swept up in police raids.