Journalists and human rights leaders are fleeing El Salvador as Bukele jails dissidents

Mexico – They fled in Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica and Spain. Most have remained in a hurry with few goods, uncertain to know when – or if they could go home.

While El Salvador reprimands dissent, the imprisonment of the criticisms of President Nayib Bukele, mass of human rights activists, journalists and other members of civil society leave the country out of fear.

More than 100 people have fled in recent months – the greatest exodus of political exiles since the country’s bloody civil war. This places Salvador with other authoritarian Latin American nations, including Nicaragua and Venezuela, where dissent has been criminalized and criticisms choose between prison and exile.

One of El Salvador’s most important human rights groups on Thursday joined the flight. Cristals, founded in 2000 by leaders of the episcopal church, announced that it had suspended its operations in the country and that nearly two of its employees had left.

Cristals was a thorn in the side of Bukele, a charismatic populist who adopted tactics of a strong man – and who was embraced by his close alliance with President Trump.

The group criticized Bukele’s unconstitutional race for a second presidential term last year. He criticized the current suspension of civil freedoms by El Salvador in the context of the radical repression of Bukele against the gangs, and provided a legal representation to hundreds of people who, according to him, were wrongly imprisoned in the country’s notable prisons.

Nayib Bukele, right with his vice-president, Félix Ulloa, was re-elected in February 2024

(Alex Peña / Aphotografia / Getty Images)

Cristal leaders have faced surveillance, police harassment and bukele attacks on social networks for years.

But this year, the authorities adopted a new law which would impose a 30% tax on donations to non -governmental organizations as crystals. And in May, police arrested Ruth Eleonora López, the group’s anti-corruption program, alleging that she had stolen public funds during a visit to the government earlier. International Rights Defense Organizations, including Amnesty International, say that the accusations are false and politically motivated and that López is denied the right to a fair trial.

His detention and the recent imprisonment of other criticisms of Bukele Franc, in particular the constitutional lawyer Enrique Anaya, the environmental activist Alejandro Henríquez and Pastor José ángel Pérez, encouraged Cristals to close his offices and to withdraw his employees from the country, said the group’s director Noah Bullock.

Police Enrique Enrique Anaya amicably in San Salvador after a June hearing. The constitutional lawyer was arrested and accused of money laundering.

(Salvador Melendez / Associated Press)

“There is no impartial institution where we can plead our case if and when the government decides to continue to persecute us, we and our staff,” said Bullock. “We cannot help anyone if we are all in prison.”

Bukele’s naked ideas party controls the congress and has served the judiciary, replacing independent judges with loyalists.

In the midst of this concentration of power, independent journalism and civic groups “were the only pillar of democracy that remained,” said Bullock. He said recent arrests sent a clear message: “Democracy is over.”

“El Salvador is on a dark path,” said Ivania Cruz, a lawyer who heads another non -profit organization, the defense unidad of Los Humanos y Comunitarios. She has lived in Spain with her son since February, when her group’s office was attacked and one of her colleagues was arrested.

Cruz had also represented inmates swept during the mass imprisonment campaign of Bukele, under which more than 85,000 people, or almost 2% of the population of El Salvador, were locked up. “Bukele criminalized us for defending the rights of the people,” she said.

The indefinite exile in a new country has not been easy, she said. “I came with only a small suitcase,” she said. “It is difficult to know that you cannot go home and that you have no choice but to start a new life.”

Bukele also carried out a campaign against journalists.

An analysis of access to the Toronto University of Rights Rights group and access to digital rights has now revealed that more than two dozen journalists have been monitored for more than a year with the PEGASUS spy software, of which the Israeli developer is sold exclusively to governments.

At least 40 journalists fled the country, according to the organization that represents them in Salvador. They include journalists who documented Bukele government negotiations with gangs, corruption in the allocation of public contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that Bukele and his family bought 34 properties valued at more than $ 9 million during his first presidential term.

El Faro, the investigation information site which first exposed gang negotiations, withdrew its journalists from the country after government sources warned that they were about to be arrested.

“We know what is happening: Exile or Prison,” said editor Oscar Martínez in an interview published by the Committee to protect journalists earlier this year. “As long as we have time, we will continue to postpone.”