How do citizens navigate the trade-off between the state's promise of security and the protection of civil liberties and democratic norms? What are people willing to sacrifice in exchange for safety, and whose rights are they willing to see compromised?

El Salvador's Régimen de Excepción (RE), in force since March 2022, offers one of the most striking contemporary examples of this dilemma. Over four years, President Nayib Bukele's government has detained more than 80,000 people, while recorded homicides have fallen to historic lows. Yet these security gains have come alongside sweeping restrictions on constitutional guarantees, due process, and fundamental civil liberties, raising profound questions about the relationship between security, state power, and democracy.

In this webinar (presented fully in Spanish), Beatriz Magaloni, Co-Director of the Democracy Action Lab (DAL), will present the lab's ongoing research on El Salvador's state of exception, examining how citizens weigh security against democratic freedoms, what drives public support for extraordinary state powers, and how perceptions of those detained shape people's willingness to defend fundamental rights.

Bringing the human consequences of these policies into focus, Samuel Ramírez, representing the Movement of Victims of the Regime (MOVIR), one of the few civil society organizations continuing to advocate for victims, will share the experiences of individuals and families affected by arbitrary detention and the suspension of legal protections.

Finally, Manuel Ortiz, Audio Visual Consultant at DAL, will take us behind the scenes of the extensive fieldwork and documentary research that informed the production of El Salvador: A Carceral State of Terror, exploring how visual storytelling can document experiences of state repression and bring voices often absent from public debate to a wider audience.

The conversation will be moderated by Rosalva Aída Hernández, Professor and Senior Researcher at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico. An anthropologist whose work bridges academic research and human rights advocacy, Hernández brings extensive experience working alongside communities affected by violence, displacement, and disappearances across Latin America.

The webinar will conclude with a screening of the documentary El Salvador: A Carceral State of Terror.