On Sunday, May 18, Salvadoran authorities arrested Ruth López, a human rights defender and anti-corruption director of Cristosal, a leading rights group in the country. Cristosal is an Anglican NGO founded over 20 years ago, that has led efforts to document and denounce widespread rights violations against the Salvadoran people under the Bukele regime. Her arrest has sparked mass indignation with many progressive and human rights organizations maintaining that her detention is part of an overall strategy to weaken human rights organizations in El Salvador.
In a communiqué following her arrest, Cristosal stated: “We denounce the arrest of Ruth López, head of our Anticorruption and Justice team, lawyer, human rights defender, university professor… This is not an isolated incident, but part of a systematic strategy of criminalization against those who defend human rights, promoted by the government of Nayib Bukele… We demand that the Salvadoran State guarantee the physical integrity and due process of our colleague Ruth López.”
The Attorney General’s Office, meanwhile, has stated that López was arrested for allegedly participating “in the theft of funds from the State coffers” during her time in the administration of Eugenio Chicas at the head of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, and her role in the Secretariat of Communication of the Presidency of the Republic during the government of Salvador Sánchez Cerén (2014-2019).
“Release Ruth now!”
Journalist Bryan Avelar has called Ruth’s arrest “a before and after in the growing criminalization of dissent in the country.” Juanita Goebertus, the Americas director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said her organization “[Follows] with concern the capture of Ruth López, who has courageously denounced the corruption and human rights violations of the Bukele government. Her arrest marks a turning point for civil society. We demand that her rights be respected.”
In this regard, more than 15 human rights organizations including HRW, RFK Human Rights, WOLA, Amnesty International, and American Jewish World Service, among others, are demanding the immediate release of López: “Authoritarianism has increased in recent years as President Nayib Bukele has undermined institutions and the rule of law, and persecuted civil society organizations and independent journalists…We call on Salvadoran authorities to immediately release Ruth López and urge the Salvadoran government to guarantee her physical safety and due process rights. We also urge US policymakers and the diplomatic community at large to urge President Bukele to cease all attacks against human rights defenders.”
In the United States, several politicians have called for Lopez’s release. Senator Jeanne Shaheen wrote: “I’m deeply concerned by the arrest and reported disappearance of Ruth Lopez, a leading human rights attorney in El Salvador. When leaders arbitrarily jail those in civil society who shine a light on injustice, we must all speak out.”
For his part, Congressman Chuy García said: “I urge Secretary Rubio to join me in denouncing the disappearance of Ruth López, a Salvadoran human rights and anti-corruption attorney. Her disappearance marks another escalation of Bukele’s authoritarian playbook—one that Trump is seeking to emulate here in the United States—and I call on the Salvadoran government for Ruth’s immediate release.”
Escalating repression in El Salvador
Lopez’s arrest took place in the midst of escalating attacks on human rights organizations in the country.
On May 12, hundreds of peasant families demonstrated outside the home of President Nayib Bukele. They were demonstrating to ask for the president’s help to suspend an eviction order which was allegedly over a contested debt owed by the families’ cooperative.
The government responded with brute force. Several community leaders were arrested, elderly people and children were pushed.
Bukele proposes Foreign Agents Law
However, Bukele was not satisfied. In an X post, the following day, he stated: “Yesterday we witnessed how humble people were manipulated by self-styled leftist groups and globalist NGOs, whose only real objective is to attack the government… Everything indicates that the demonstrators were not only manipulated, but were even taken at night to protest in front of a private residence unrelated to the case.”
In this sense, Bukele proposed to legislate the activity of NGOs and charge a tax with which the president proposes to pay the debt held by the aforementioned cooperative: “For this reason, and given the apparent concern of these NGOs, I have decided to send to the Legislative Assembly the Foreign Agents Bill, which will include a 30% tax on all donations that these NGOs receive.”
