Archbishop José Luis Escobar has welcomed the extension of a government emergency decree allowing for a crackdown on violent street gangs.

Although some human-rights activists have criticized the government’s campaign, charging that innocent people are being arrested and denied due process, the archbishop said that the extension of a 30-day emergency is warranted. “People are afraid of returning to the way it was before, now that they have begun to live without this scourge,” he said.