El Salvador passes new rules allowing mass trials for accused gang members in crackdown effort

El Salvador's congress passed a series of new rules aimed at accelerating the legal process for accused gang members in mass trials, as part of President Nayib Bukele's campaign.

His government suspended constitutional rights and has detained 71,976 people accused of being in gangs, or 1% of the country’s population. They have been jammed into prisons, fueling waves of accusations of human rights violations. As little as 30% of those detained have clear ties to organized crime, the human rights group Cristosal estimates.

The new rules allow trials to be held for groups of defendants based on what area they lived in and what "clique" — a smaller group within a gang — controlled that territory.