Weekly Report - 03 September 2015 (WR-15-35)

The constitutional chamber of the supreme court has issued a ruling which could be a game changer in El Salvador. As the government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has taken the fight to the country’s mara street gangs, leading to violence spiralling out of control, the court ruled that mara members can be described as terrorists and that belonging to one of the gangs is a crime. While President Sánchez Cerén celebrated the court’s interpretation of the country’s anti-terrorism law, the ombudsman, David Morales, warned against the risk of it being used to justify “abuses of authority”.