Investigating El Salvador’s crackdown on gangs

It’s been over a year since El Salvador declared a state of emergency as part of President Nayib Bukele’s vow to crack down on gangs. Since March 2022, the country’s murder rate has dropped by over half. But, in the process, the government arrested almost 70,000 people while suspending every citizen’s constitutional right to legal defense and allowing indefinite pre-trial detention. Despite El Salvador’s repressive new reality, Bukele and his policy remain extremely popular. Raising the question, is El Salvador becoming a police state?

In this episode: 

• Monica Villamizar (@monica_vv), freelance correspondent 

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Khaled Soltan and Miranda Lin and host Kevin Hirten, in for Malika Bilal. Miranda Lin fact-checked this episode.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. This episode was mixed by Tim St. Clair.

Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Munera Al Dosari and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio.

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