El Salvador takes aim at imprisoned gang leaders ability to make calls
22/06/2019 04:20
SAN SALVADOR, June 21 (Reuters) - It will be much harder for
El Salvador's prison population, including gang leaders, to
communicate with those on the outside after the government on
Friday ordered mobile telephone service providers to disable
their signals in the facilities.
The decision by President Nayib Bukele, who took office
earlier this month, is aimed at reducing the country's high
murder rate and other violent crimes, which he says are often
ordered by those behind bars.
The country's mobile telephone providers, including Claro,
Tigo, Digicel and Telefonica have 72 hours to comply with the
order, Bukele said in a post on Twitter.
The order would block both data and calls in and around 28
prisons spread across the country and would likely affect
service to people who live near the facilities.
"It can't be that after so many years in which (the
providers) say they're doing this, today they come and accept
that that's not the case," Bukele wrote in his post.
The president's security cabinet met with executives from
the phone service providers earlier on Friday, according to a
government statement.
Since the beginning of this year, some 1,500 murders have
been reported in El Salvador as Bukele's government seeks to
reduce the violence by targeting the country's gangs.
Bukele is also seeking to move than 1,000 imprisoned members
of the Barrio 18 gang from one prison to another in another
effort to frustrate their communications.
El Salvador's four main mobile providers did not immediately
respond to requests for comment late on Friday.
American Movil AMXL.MX , controlled by the family of
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, is the parent company of Claro
and is seeking to buy Telefonica's TEF.MC unit in El Salvador.
Digicel Group DCEL.N is a privately held company that
operates primarily in Central America and the Caribbean. Tigo is
owned by Luxembourg-based Millicom International Cellular
TIGOsdb.ST , which operates mostly in Latin America and Africa.
(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Writing by David Alire Garcia;
Editing by Tom Hogue)
((david.aliregarcia@thomsonreuters.com; +52 55 5282 7151;
Reuters Messaging:
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