A Dictatorship Flexes
El Salvador, emboldened by U.S. support, has ramped up crackdowns on critics, protesters, the free press, and erstwhile supporters alike
It’s been a busy month for Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. In the last few weeks has: “disappeared” a prominent human rights lawyer, issued arrest warrants for 7 journalists who exposed details about his power-sharing deal with gangs, used riot police to crush a peaceful protest of citizens left homeless by his infrastructure policies, targeted human rights NGOs with a “foreign agents” law, and arrested 16 bus company owners for slow service when his government declared public transport free for 24 hours.
One of those company owners died in police custody.
The journalists, from Salvadoran media company El Faro, fled the country after they received tips from government sources that police were preparing to arrest them under "terrorism” laws that forbid speaking to, or writing about, organized crime in the country.
Human rights lawyer Ruth López was arrested in El Salvador after the Attorney General’s office accused her of embezzlement of state funds during her time in public office nearly a decade ago. López leads the anti-corruption investigations for human rights organization Cristosal.
López has been an outspoken critic of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Her organization has long documented human rights abuses in El Salvador — including inhumane conditions in jails and the extended state of emergency, during which the government has suspended many constitutional rights and imprisoned tens of thousands of Salvadoran citizens.
She has also spoken up about and represented some of the migrants sent to the infamous terrorism confinement center CECOT by the United States.
In a statement, Cristosal said Lopez was arrested at her home late on Sunday evening by armed police. They say her whereabouts remain unknown and denounced her arrest as "short-term enforced disappearance".
Since defying the Salvadoran Constitution last year to overwhelmingly win a second presidential term, Bukele has continued consolidating his power and ruthlessly persecuting critics.
The increasingly close relationship Bukele has cultivated with U.S. President Donald Trump seems to be emboldening him to take ever more draconian domestic policies in El Salvador.
His actions and tactics have also grown increasingly similar to authoritarian states he and members of the Trump administration often criticize. Defending his foreign agents law, Bukele described NGOs as funded by “Soros” and “globalist so-called leftists whose only real objective is to attack the government.”
He blamed NGOs for being behind protests outside his home last week when residents evicted from their homes by his government pleaded for solutions. He has since arrested some of the organizers.
Bukele “sounds a lot to me like Nicaragua”, said Human Rights Watch Assistant Americas director Juan Papier, on social media platform X on Monday.
Presidents Daniel Ortega, in Nicaragua, and Nicolas Maduro, in Venezuela, have long imprisoned political opponents, attacked humanitarian NGOs in the country, blaming them for “attacks” on their governments, and criminalized journalists who criticize or expose corruption within state ranks.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has often called the Maduro government “a criminal regime,” “masquerading as a government.”
El Faro, in an editorial statement after its journalists fled the country, stated, “We are witness to a mafia regime.”
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