The Latin American countries of El Salvador and Cuba are among the countries with the most prisoners in the world.
A University of London report warns that the Central American country has more than 38,250 prisoners and the Caribbean Island has around 57,100.
Raids on tens of thousands of suspected gang members have resulted in El Salvador having the highest prison population per capita in the world.
According to Birkbeck College, University of London’s World Prison Brief report, this is a higher percentage of inmates than in the United States and Cuba.
President Nayib Bukele‘s government last year declared a state of emergency and built a massive prison complex to curb gang violence. Human rights groups have criticized the lack of due process, but the raid is popular with the public.
Salvadoran security authorities reported more than 60,400 arrests under the state of emergency that came into effect since late March following an escalation in gang killings, accounting for about 1% of the country’s total population.
According to the latest Multipurpose Household Census, the total population of El Salvador is 6,325,827.
According to Zaira Navas, head of the legal department of the humanitarian organization Cristosal, there was already a high overcrowding rate in El Salvador’s prisons before the start of the emergency regime.
Navas explained that prisons had a capacity of 32,000 people by 2021, but the number of prisoners is “much higher”.
According to a report by the University of London, there are currently 605 prisoners for every 100,000 inhabitants in El Salvador.
In other words, more than 38,250 people are imprisoned in the Central American country.
And in Cuba, according to the report, there are 510 prisoners for every 100,000 inhabitants.
Considering that the island has a population of 11.2 million according to 2021 data from the World Bank, around 57,100 people would be incarcerated.
The NGO Prisoners Defenders (PD) denounced last Thursday (12th) that there are currently 1,057 political prisoners in Cuba, 29 of whom were added in December.
“Thousands of people continue to be harassed, threatened, subpoenaed and detained in Cuba every month, and an average of more than 30 new political prisoners are detained and prosecuted every month. People live in fear. Cuba has become a giant prison for the vast majority of its citizens. Despite the misery Cuba is experiencing, the tremendous repression means Cubans live in genuine fear for their safety and their most basic freedoms are severely curtailed,” the Madrid-based organization denounces in its latest monthly report.
PD criticized that these detainees are “subject to judicial convictions or restraints by prosecutors without any judicial oversight, in flagrant violation of international law and due process”.
Of the total number of detainees, 190 protesters were charged with sedition and at least 175 were sentenced to prison terms averaging more than 10 years,” the report said.
It added that “938 political prisoners on the list were sentenced to life imprisonment on 18 counts.”
In addition, the PD report details that “at least 123 women (including several transgender women) remain in prison on political and conscientious charges and convictions.”
“All transgender women in the prisons have been and continue to be imprisoned among men and suffer unspeakable situations because of their gender,” the lawsuit reads.
With information from latinapress