Salvadoran court sentences 3 youths to prison after they appeared in video making gang signs
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele gives a press conference in San Salvador, El Salvador, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)
SAN SALVADOR (AP) — A court in El Salvador on Thursday sentenced three youths to five years in prison and put five more on probation after they were arrested last year following the public release of a video of them making gang signs inside a school.
Seven other young people, who were also being prosecuted for alleged links to gangs, were acquitted by the court in the country’s capital San Salvador.
The youths, aged 12 to 15, were detained after a video shared on the social media platform TikTok showed them flashing signs connected with the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, according to police.
It comes amid a harsh gang crackdown by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.
Following a wave of gang violence in 2022, Bukele declared a temporary state of emergency in the Central American country and waved key constitutional rights. The government has arrested 84,000 people – more than 1% of the country’s population – the vast majority of whom remain in prison without a court sentence.
The government has said it has freed 8,000 people it deemed innocent.
While the crackdown has fueled waves of human rights criticisms, it also prompted a sharp decline in crime and homicide rates, causing Bukele’s popularity to soar.
The Thursday sentences also underscore the convoluted toll that the crackdown has had on the country’s youth, particularly those in poorer areas, who for decades have been preyed upon and recruited by gangs.
When the young people were arrested, the government reported that more than 1,000 youths had been convicted with sentences ranging up to 20 years in prison for alleged ties to gangs.
El Salvador’s penal code carries sentences between 20 to 40 years for gang membership, and 60 years for ring leaders. A 2023 reform by Bukele set prison sentences for children under the age of 12 at 10 years, and up to 20 years for those over 16 years old.
Of the seven who were exonerated this week, the San Salvador judge that they had proved that they had no links of any kind to gangs, and that the case would set a precedent for children being prosecuted.