Soldiers, police fence off El Salvador neighbourhood, in search for gang members
More than 2,000 soldiers and 500 police officers surrounded a populous neighbourhood on the outskirts of El Salvador’s capital on Monday in an effort to quash the remnants of gangs the president said were trying to set up shop in the area.
“There is a group of gang members in hiding. We have established a security fence throughout the neighborhood … to extract every last gang member in the area,” wrote Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in a post on X.
Police surrounded the San Marcos neighbourhood with a military fence, setting up checkpoints to prevent gang members from escaping, said Defence Minister René Francis Merino Monroy.
The fence was the third of its kind to be installed in parts of San Salvador intended to find and arrest gang members still operating in the country. In March, Bukele ordered similar barricades to be put up in a northern part of the country, which he said was to dismantle a faction of the Barrio 18 gang.
The blockade is the latest in the populist leader’s war on gangs, announced by Bukele following a surge of violence in March 2022.
Crackdown has fuelled human rights criticism
Bukele’s government called for a “state of emergency” and waived constitutional rights to arrest more than one per cent of El Salvador’s population with little evidence. The crackdown has fuelled sharp criticism from human rights groups, raising alarm about prison conditions and saying many of those arrested were innocent or only had loose ties to gangs.
Other measures he’s taken — like seeking re-election despite a constitutional ban of presidents serving two consecutive terms — have raised democracy-related alarms.
But the war on gangs also dealt a strong blow to the Barrio 18 and MS-13 gangs that have long sowed terror in much of the country, extorting money, murdering those who didn’t pay, and trafficking drugs.
The measures resulted in a sharp dip in homicides and spurred a populist fervour for Bukele.
Despite effectively declaring victory in his war, the president has continued to extend the “state of emergency” for over two years now, claiming that such measures are needed to take out the remains of El Salvador’s gangs.
Published at Tue, 29 Oct 2024 00:01:11 +0000
FBI investigating after U.S. ballot boxes set on fire in Washington and Oregon
Authorities, including the FBI, were investigating Monday after early morning fires were set in U.S. ballot drop boxes in Portland, Ore., and in nearby Vancouver, Wash., where hundreds of ballots were destroyed.
The Portland Police Bureau reported that officers and firefighters responded to a fire in one ballot drop box at about 3:30 a.m. PT and determined an incendiary device had been placed inside. Multnomah County elections director Tim Scott said a fire suppressant inside the drop box protected nearly all the ballots; only three were damaged, and his office planned to contact those voters to help them obtain replacements.
Authorities in Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash., are investigating after ballot boxes in the neighbouring cities were set ablaze early Monday, damaging ballots that had already been cast ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.
A few hours later, across the Columbia River in Vancouver, television crews captured footage of smoke pouring out of a ballot box at a transit centre. Vancouver is the biggest city in Washington’s third congressional district, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.
“I hope the perpetrator of this reprehensible act is quickly apprehended — and local and federal law enforcement have my full support in working to keep our democratic process safe and secure,” Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement.
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She said she’s requesting an overnight law enforcement presence posted at all ballot drop boxes in Clark County through election day.
“Southwest Washington cannot risk a single vote being lost to arson and political violence,” she said in the statement.
Representatives for Kent’s campaign didn’t immediately return The Associated Press’s phone and email messages seeking comment.
Fires ‘direct attack on democracy’: county auditor
Clark County auditor Greg Kimsey in Vancouver, Wash., told the AP that the ballot drop box at the Fisher’s Landing Transit Center also had a fire suppression system inside, but for some reason it wasn’t effective. Responders pulled a burning pile of ballots from inside the box, and Kimsey said hundreds were lost.
“Heartbreaking,” Kimsey said of the incident. “It’s a direct attack on democracy.”
There were surveillance cameras that covered the drop box and surrounding area, he said.
CNN senior political data reporter Harry Enten says he’s never seen a U.S. election race tighter than the one between Vice-President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.
The last ballot pickup at the transit centre drop box was at 11 a.m. PT Saturday, Kimsey said. Anyone who dropped their ballot there after that was urged to contact the auditor’s office to obtain a new one.
The office will be increasing how frequently it collects ballots, Kimsey said, and changing collection times to the evening, to keep the ballot boxes from remaining full overnight, when similar crimes are considered more likely to occur.
An incendiary device was also found on or near a drop box in downtown Vancouver early on Oct. 8. It did not damage the box or destroy any ballots, police said.
FBI asking public for information
In a statement, the FBI said it is co-ordinating with U.S. federal, state and local partners to investigate the two incidents. Anyone with information is asked to contact the nearest FBI office, provide information through tips.fbi.gov or call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324).
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said the state would not tolerate threats or acts of violence meant to derail voting.
“I strongly denounce any acts of terror that aim to disrupt lawful and fair elections in Washington state,” he said.
Voters were encouraged to check their ballot status online at www.votewa.gov to track its return status. If a returned ballot is not marked as “received,” voters can print a replacement ballot or visit their local elections department for a replacement, the secretary of state’s office said.
Washington and Oregon are both vote-by-mail states. Registered voters receive their ballots in the mail a few weeks before elections and then return them by mail or by placing them in ballot drop boxes.
In Phoenix last week, officials said roughly five ballots were destroyed and others damaged when a fire was set in a drop box at a U.S. Postal Service station there.
Published at Mon, 28 Oct 2024 20:27:25 +0000
