El Salvador president threatens to send imprisoned gangsters to Paris Fashion Week
El Salvador’s president said he would send inmates of the country’s notorious mega-prison to France in the wake of a Paris Fashion Week show critiquing the government’s treatment of the prisoners.
Nayib Bukele criticised a collection debuted by Willy Chavarria, a Mexican-American designer, featuring models wearing outfits resembling inmate uniforms at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot).
The maximum-security prison was opened in 2023 on the orders of Mr Bukele as part of his war against organised crime, but human rights groups have raised concerns about poor conditions and a lack of due process.
Responding to a message online saying Mr Chavarria’s show was a tribute to Cecot prisoners, the El Salvador president wrote: “We’re ready to ship them all to Paris whenever we get the green light from the French government.”
Mr Bukele’s press team said the president’s response showed his “firm stance against the attempt to glorify criminality”.
Credit: Paris Fashion Week/@dom_lucre/X
Mr Chavarria’s Paris Fashion Week show opened with 35 men walking down the runway wearing white T-shirts and shorts that had been made in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union.
The models then dropped into kneeling positions with their heads bowed, recalling images which emerged from El Salvador in the months after the government adopted a harsher approach to gangs.
Others wore T-shirts emblazoned with the word “America” upside-down, which fashion critics speculated was a commentary on Mr Chavarria’s belief the country is moving backwards.
The designer also sent invitations for his Spring 2026 show in the form of replica immigration summons, with the documents certifying readers’ “right to exist”, before asking them to attend for a “presentation of humanity”.
The models dropped into kneeling positions with their heads bowed, recalling images which emerged of prisoners in Cecot – AKGS/Backgrid UK
Tens of thousands of suspected gang members have been rounded up and incarcerated in El Salvador since a state of emergency was declared in March 2022 following a spike in murders and violent crimes.
Hailing the success of the crackdown, the country’s government reported that the homicide rate fell by nearly 70 per cent in 2023.
However, concerns have been raised about conditions inside Cecot, as well as the possibility that some of those imprisoned may be innocent of gang involvement.
Human Rights Watch claimed inmates were denied communication with relatives or lawyers, with reports claiming prisoners only leave their cells for 30 minutes a day.
Human rights groups have raised concerns about how Nayib Bukele’s government has treated prisoners – Marvin Recinos/AFP
Alongside roughly 15,000 domestic prisoners, Cecot also holds more than 200 Venezuelans deported from the United States, accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang.
The Trump administration paid Mr Bukele’s government millions of dollars to lock up the migrants, claiming they were criminals and gang members.
Donald Trump invoked little-used wartime legislation in March to fly the migrants to El Salvador without court hearings.
