The fact that it was expected didn’t make it any less harsh. The newly approved indefinite presidential re-election in El Salvador pushes back the return of dozens of human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, and environmentalists who went into exile to avoid prison.
Four of them spoke about what they call an “escalating repression” by President Nayib Bukele against critics of his government, whom he accuses of “distorting” and “manipulating” from the left. Around 80 people have gone into exile in the past four months, according to activists and human rights defenders. AFP sought comment from the government but has not received a response.
Popular for his “war” against gangs, Bukele, president since 2019, controls all branches of government and calls himself a “cool dictator.”
The Human Rights Defender
Her left arm is bandaged. Shortly after crossing the border with Guatemala with her 9- and 11-year-old children, she underwent surgery for a tumor in Mexico, where they are now sheltered.“I put my health, my freedom, and my children first,” says Ingrid Escobar, director of the NGO Socorro Jurídico, which assists families of prisoners in El Salvador.
She says police circled her house “twice a week” until a friend in the prosecutor’s office warned her she was on a list of 11 people set to be arrested. “I had no choice… due to the harassment and the fear of dying in prison without medical treatment. I grabbed some clothes and left however I could,” says the 43-year-old, who has dedicated her life to humanitarian activism.
A fierce critic of the state of emergency imposed by Bukele in 2022 as part of his anti-gang “war,” she denounces that among the 88,000 detainees there are “thousands of innocents” and that 433 have died in custody.
Socorro Jurídico still operates in El Salvador, but the team is at “high risk,” she laments. “Consolidating the dictatorship means jailing human rights defenders to silence them,” Escobar says. “There is no such thing as a cool dictatorship.”
The Lawyer
Ruth López was already in pajamas when police came to arrest her on the night of May 18. The lawyer, who headed the anti-corruption unit of the humanitarian NGO Cristosal and investigated government-level cases, was accused of illicit enrichment by the Bukele-aligned prosecutor’s office.
Her arrest marked a turning point. A month later, her colleague René Valiente, head of investigations, went into exile with 20 other Cristosal activists. “There were social media attacks, stigmatization of our work, and surveillance by security forces,” says Valiente, 39, from Cristosal’s office in Guatemala.
A constitutional lawyer and an environmental lawyer were also arrested in May and June, and a “foreign agents law” — similar to those in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Russia — took effect to control NGOs and impose taxes equivalent to 30% of their funds.
Alongside López, Valiente remotely advised families of 252 Venezuelans deported by Washington who spent four months in Bukele’s mega-prison for gang members.
“He wields repression because he has validation from the United States and has dismantled democratic checks and balances. We will work from here for a country that doesn’t have to choose between security and rights,” says Valiente.
The Journalist
His bags are still packed as he seeks asylum in another country from Guatemala. Journalist Jorge Beltrán, 55, left El Salvador on June 14 “completely devastated,” without his wife and children.
“I’m emotionally unwell. But in El Salvador it’s no longer safe to practice free and critical journalism,” he says from the small room he rents. A journalist for 23 years, Beltrán is among the 47 reporters who have gone into exile in recent months, according to the press association APES.
From El Diario de Hoy, he reported on “corrupt Bukele officials and human rights violations.” It was no easy task, he adds, because the government “closed access to public documents.” He decided to leave when people close to those in power warned him that he was on the police’s radar.
“It’s a very bitter pill to swallow,” he says. And indefinite re-election “erases the hope of returning in a few years.” Although currently unemployed, he plans to create a digital outlet to report from abroad on what’s happening in El Salvador: “I’ll be far away, but I won’t be silent.”
The Environmentalist
When the Bukele-controlled Congress lifted the ban on metallic mining in December, many Salvadorans protested. Amalia López was among them. An environmental leader for a decade, López, 45, left her country in April after helping file an unconstitutionality lawsuit against mining.
“I felt watched. I thought I’d take shelter until the pressure eased and then return, but I’m no longer sure about going back,” she says from Costa Rica. In May, an environmental defender and a community leader were arrested while protesting with farmers near Bukele’s residence.
“With such overwhelming military and political power, we can’t do much,” says López, who also defends communities’ rights to water and land, threatened by “powerful economic groups.”
All her work and personal ties “were left behind.” “With re-election, returning soon is impossible. Now it’s an increasingly distant reality,” she says resignedly.
