The main journalists’ association in El Salvador denounced on Sunday the increase in “persecution” against media outlets and human rights defenders by the government of Nayib Bukele, accusing it of creating a climate of “fear” in the country. The complaint comes amid strong criticism from international organizations, which also accuse Bukele, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, of accelerating repression against his opponents following the recent arrests of lawyers and activists.
Additionally, Congress, controlled by Bukele, passed a law this week—at the president’s request—requiring NGOs to register as “foreign agents” and pay a 30% tax on donations received. “The Bukele government and its attorney general’s office have carried out an authoritarian escalation,” said the Association of Journalists of El Salvador, founded in 1936, in a statement.
“A very tense and fearful atmosphere is being experienced among organizations (…) May has been a month of persecution, criminalization, and suffocation of all critical or dissenting voices working in human rights defense or non-aligned media,” the statement added. According to the association, more than a dozen people have fled in May for fear of “arbitrary detention.”
Despite international accusations of human rights violations due to his security policies, President Bukele remains highly popular in El Salvador for drastically reducing gang-related murders. Last Tuesday, police arrested prominent attorney Ruth López for alleged embezzlement. López had previously denounced government corruption and assisted Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S.
In recent weeks, environmental lawyer Alejandro Henríquez and evangelical pastor José Pérez were also jailed after participating in a protest by farming families. In February, human rights activist Fidel Zavala was arrested and accused by the attorney general’s office of gang involvement.
In their statement, Salvadoran journalists called on the Bukele government to “stop sowing uncertainty” and demanded that the attorney general’s office and police “cease participating in the persecution” of critical voices.
