El Salvador’s top human rights group flees President Bukele’s ongoing crackdown on dissent

MEXICO CITY (AP) — El Salvador’s top human rights organization, Cristosal, announced Thursday it is leaving the country because of mounting harassment and legal threats by the government of President Nayib Bukele.

The organization has been one of the most visible critics of Bukele, documenting abuses in the strongman’s war on the country’s gangs and the detention of hundreds of Venezuelan deportees in an agreement with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Bukele’s government has long targeted opponents, but Cristosal Executive Director Noah Bullock said things reached a tipping point in recent months as Bukele has grown empowered by his alliance with Trump.

“The clear targeting of our organization has made us choose between exile or prison,” Bullock said in an interview with the Associated Press. “The Bukele administration has unleashed a wave of repression over the past few months ... There’s been an exodus of civil society leaders, professionals and even businessmen.”

El Salvador ‘s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cristosal has been working in El Salvador since 2000, when it was founded by Evangelical bishops in order to address human rights and democratic concerns following the country’s brutal civil war.

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On Thursday, the human rights organization announced that it packed up its offices and moved 20 employees from the Central American nation to neighboring Guatemala and Honduras. Cristosal quietly got staff and their families out before publicly announcing they were leaving out of fear that they could be targeted by the Bukele government.

The decision came after its top anti-corruption lawyer Ruth López was jailed in June on enrichment charges, which the organization denies.

Cristosal’s legal team has supported hundreds of cases alleging the government arbitrarily detained innocent people in its crackdown on gangs, and has unlawfully detained Venezuelans deported from the U.S. López headed many of those investigations. In a court appearance in June, she appeared shackled and escorted by police.

“They’re not going to silence me, I want a public trial,” she shouted. “I’m a political prisoner.”

For years, the organization said staff have been followed around by police officers, had their phones tapped by spyware like Pegasus, and been subject to legal attacks and defamation campaigns.

But López’s court appearance was the moment that Bullock said he knew they would have to leave the country.

At the same time, the government has arrested more critics, while others have quietly fled the country. In late May, El Salvador’s Congress passed a “foreign agents” law, championed by the populist president. It resembles legislation implemented by governments in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Russia, Belarus and China to silence and criminalize dissent by exerting pressure on organizations that rely on overseas funding.

Bullock said the the law would make it easier for the government to criminalize staff and cripple the organization economically.

Cristosal’s flight from the country marks another blow to checks and balances in a country where Bukele has virtually consolidated control of the government. Bullock said no longer being able to work in the country will make it significantly harder for the organization to continue their ongoing legal work, particularly supporting those detained with little access to due process.