El Salvador prison video falsely shared to claim US treated Indian deportees better than those to Muslim countries

A video, around a minute-long, is viral on social media with the claim that it shows American military personnel in the process of deporting illegal immigrants from Islamic countries. The video in question shows men in uniform forcibly shaving the beards of these ‘infiltrators’, and proceeding to detain them in prison. It is overlaid with a Hindi caption that indicates that the US army’s tactics of dealing with illegal immigrants from Islamic countries is far more severe than the treatment dished out to Indian immigrants.

The claim has surfaced in the aftermath of Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. In February this year, over 200 illegal immigrants from India were deported back to the country on US military aircraft in two batches. Footage released in public domain by US authorities showed them restrained with handcuffs and chains. This sparked a political row with the Opposition calling it ‘inhuman’ and holding protests outside the Parliament demanding a discussion on the issue.

Coming back to the viral clip, Verified X user (@ashishvyas__) posted it along with a caption in Hindi, which alludes to the alleged Muslim immigrants as ‘Jihadis’. At the time of this article being written, the post has garnered around 2 Lakh views, and has been reshared close to 600 times. (Archive) 

Alt News has received a request on its WhatsApp helpline for authenticating the visuals in the above tweet.

Fact Check

On going through the video, we could spot the acronym ‘DGCP’ visible on the military vests worn by the personnel.

Click to view slideshow.

Taking a cue from this we performed a keyword search and were able to ascertain that the DGCP stood for the General Directorate of Penal Centers, the main government agency responsible for managing the prisons and detention facilities of El Salvador, a country in Central America.

Thereafter, another relevant keyword search led us to this YouTube video, uploaded by Reuters, on March 17, which reports on the deportation of more than 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members from US to El Salvador.

 

The inmates were reportedly transferred from the US to El Salvador and detained at a maximum security prison, known as CECOT, which stands for Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism. CECOT is a controversial facility in Tecoluca, about 73 km from the Capital, San Salvador. CECOT is one of the largest detention facilities in the world and has often faced criticism for potential human rights violations.

We went through the verified X profile of Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele), the President of El Salvador, and found that he had recently posted the now viral video showing members of a gang named Tren de Aragua being detained at the prison facility. The viral section of the clip can be located approximately at the timestamp of 1:57. 

In conclusion, the video which is viral with the claim that ‘Jihadis’ were being deported by the US actually shows the detention of more than 200 Venezuelans, alleged to be affiliated to a criminal organization named Tren de Aragua. The alleged gang members were transferred from the US to El Salvador and lodged at the CECOT, which is a maximum-security prison facility. The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, had shared the video from his own verified X handle, on March 16.

Though it is not possible to ascertain the religion of the people being detained, this is what we found about the religious demography of El Salvador on the US department of state website:

The U.S. government estimates the total population at 6.6 million (midyear 2022). According to a February 2021 survey by the University of Central America’s Institute of Public Opinion, 43.3 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, 33.9 percent as evangelical Christian, and 18.6 percent with no religious affiliation. Approximately 3 percent of the population identifies as “other,” which includes Anglicans, members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Muslims, Baha’is, Jews, Buddhists, and members of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. Approximately 1.2 percent of the population identifies as agnostic or atheist. A small segment of the population adheres to Indigenous religious beliefs, with some mixing of these beliefs with Christianity and Islam. Muslim leaders estimate there are approximately 500 Muslims.

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