Cristosal forced into exile after 25 years in El Salvador : NPR

The executive director of the NGO Cristals, Noah Bullock (C), talks next to the research director René Valiente (L), Abraham Abrego (2nd R), Director of Strategic Dispute and Guatemalte Little Rafael Cruz (R) during a press conference in Guatemala City on July 17, 2025.

Johan Ordonnez / AFP

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Johan Ordonnez / AFP

Panama City, Panama – El Salvador has lost another human rights group. The most eminent human rights group in the country, Cristal, announced Thursday that it was forced to close its operations in the country of Central America.

The group was founded by evangelical bishops to respond to human rights and democratic concerns after the country’s civil war. But after 25 years of documentation of abuses in the country, the organization claims that the escalation of threats from the government of President Nayib Bukele – a key ally of the Trump administration – made them dangerous for them to operate within Salvador. He will now continue his work in exile in neighboring Guatemala and Honduras.

The organization accuses the government of legal and administrative harassment of Bukele, spying, monitoring their activities as well as defamation campaigns.

Speaking at a press conference in Guatemala on Thursday, the group’s executive director, Noah Taureau said “the clear targeting of our organization made us choose between exile or prison. The Bukele administration has sparked a wave of repression in recent months.”

A Bukele spokesperson did not immediately respond to the request for NPR comments.

The group’s decision to suspend its operations in Salvador occurs less than three months after Arrest and imprisonment of the human rights activist Ruth López, who heads the anti-corruption and justice program of crystals. Bullock said his arrest had been a “break point” for the organization.

López and the organization were frank criticisms of the heavy tactics of Bukele, including the mass incarceration of members of alleged gangs under a state of radical emergency imposed in 2022.

Cristals’ departure occurs in the middle of a recent exodus of Salvadoral journalists and human rights activists. The group of journalists, Asociación de Péridistas de El Salvador, estimates that at least 40 journalists were forced to leave the country.

Bukele, who was re -elected last year, says that repression made the country much more safe, and although it has led to a spectacular reduction in crime, criticisms say that this has also led to the detention of more than 85,000 men and to men and spread human rights violations.

The president repeatedly rejected crystal as a political organization funded abroad. In May, his government adopted a law of “foreign agents” allowing authorities to monitor and impose non -governmental organizations (NGOs) with international support – a decision widely considered to be targeting criticism and echoing repression in China, Russia, Bélarus, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Bukele, the “cooiest dictator in the worlds”, has become one of Trump’s most loyal defenders in the region and the two governments cultivated increasingly close ties. Earlier this year, Trump deportee Hundreds of mainly Venezuelan migrants from the United States, saying that they were gang members, in Salvador-where they were sent to the notorious mega-prison of Bukele, to the terrorism confinement center, or CECOT.