El Salvador Ok's Anti-Terrorism Law
Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Foreign Correspondent San Salvador, El Salvador (AHN) - El Salvador's lawmakers finally approved on Friday a law which penalizes with a maximum of 86 years of imprisonment convicted terrorists. Following a heated debate which extended into the early hours of Friday, legislators approved the law which was strongly opposed by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, which fought a 12-year civil war against the government that ended in 1992. Opposition forces said the law was a mere attempt to repress dissent. "We don't see this as an international measure," said Sigifrido Reyes, one of the lawmakers belonging to the FMNLF. "What the right-wing government is doing is planning for a scenario of growing social conflicts, given that its strategy for creating jobs and attracting investments has failed." One of the controversies hounding the law is its provision for anonymous witnesses, judges and undercover agents, which Ryes called "a terrible temptation for repressive actions of an authoritarian nature." "Authorities have the discretion to label anything as a terrorist act," he lamented. But Guillermo Avila, a member of the governing Nationalist Republican Alliance countered that the law is simply meant to punish criminals and is strongly against acts that cause fear and threaten the population. Guillermo Gallegos, also of the NRA simply dismissed the Front's opposition |
