https://arab.news/8hrpq
SAN SALVADOR: El Salvador’s government on Saturday criticized a Paris Fashion Week show that made references to inmates at the country’s CECOT mega-prison, with President Nayib Bukele joking that he could send prisoners to France.
At Mexican American designer Willy Chavarria’s show in Paris on Friday, the white T-shirts and shorts worn by his models invoked the uniforms worn by inmates at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Bukele had the maximum-security prison built to hold gang members nabbed in his war against organized crime.
Also imprisoned at CECOT are 252 Venezuelans deported from the United States and accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang.
“We’re ready to ship them all to Paris whenever we get the green light from the French government,” Bukele wrote in response to an X post that said Chavarria was paying tribute to CECOT prisoners.
The president’s press secretariat said Bukele’s post showed his “firm stance against the attempt to glorify criminality.”
Since March 2022, Bukele has run an offensive against gangs under a state of emergency that allows arrests without a warrant.
The Trump administration has paid Bukele’s government millions of dollars to lock up migrants it says are criminals and gang members.
US President Donald Trump invoked a rarely used wartime legislation in March to fly migrants to El Salvador without any court hearing.
Lawyers for the Venezuelans deported to CECOT say the charges are without basis and the inmates are victims of physical and emotional torture.