Robotic dogs rolled down the pavement, 3,484 students marched in formation, and the United States' top diplomat sent his congratulations: that was the government's version of El Salvador's 205th independence anniversary this past Tuesday, September 15. A few blocks away, roughly 500 people walked in the opposite direction, calling for the release of thousands of people held under the country's state of exception.
The overlap wasn't accidental. On the same day Washington praised President Nayib Bukele's security model, human rights groups were documenting that tens of thousands of Salvadorans remain behind bars under an emergency regime now in its fourth year.
