A version of this article was originally published on Aug. 7 in Spanish by Agencia Ocote and has been translated and republished here with permission.
Abraham Abrego never imagined he would have to close Cristosal’s offices in El Salvador and move, of all places, to Guatemala. In the neighboring country to the north, the prosecutor’s office criminalizes and persecutes those who fight against corruption, social defenders, journalists and politicians.
As litigation director at Cristosal, Abrego has documented more than 3,700 reports of human rights violations during the state of emergency imposed by Nayib Bukele since March 2022.
But when this past May the government detained his colleague Cristosal’s anti-corruption chief Ruth López, and the Legislative Assembly approved the Foreign Agents Law, Abrego and his colleagues realized the criminalization they feared was beginning to come true.
Cristosal was founded 25 years ago to defend human rights after the armed conflict in El Salvador. In June, the organization shut down operations in its home country and resettled in Guatemala.
This decision is being repeated by dozens of social defenders and journalists who have had to leave their country in recent months.
Sergio Arauz, deputy editor of El Faro and current president of the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES), is part of this new forced diaspora.
Also settled in Guatemala, Arauz coordinates efforts to document and support colleagues who, like him, had to flee after the “May escalation,” when Bukele’s government intensified persecution against critical voices.
Records of exile are kept by the organizations that bring together victims. According to data from APES and the Central American Network of Journalists (RCP for its initials in Spanish), at least 47 journalists left El Salvador between May and July 2025.
Of those, 37 fled through Guatemala. Half are still in the country, while others ended up in Mexico, Europe and, to a lesser extent, the United States.
“I decided that in the face of repression it was better to leave El Salvador and continue working from outside rather than be locked up within the four walls of a prison,” said Angélica Cárcamo, former president of APES and current executive director of the RCP.
“Many of us whose work has been critical were under police surveillance. I have photographs. By 2024, there were also soldiers outside my house,” she said.
Along with them, at least 33 human rights defenders, activists and lawyers have left the country. Most of them from Cristosal.
Various Salvadoran and international organizations reported on July 23 to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that between 2021 and 2025, a total of 130 dissenting voices have had to go into exile.
However, the organizations say the figures are underreported, since many do not report their departure for security reasons.
For Guatemalan journalist Marielos Monzón, president of the RCP, El Salvador is replicating the authoritarian pattern seen in Nicaragua, which already has more than 200 journalists in exile.
“The model (Bukele) is implementing is authoritarian in nature, and we know how it ends because that’s how it started with (Ortega) in Nicaragua,” Monzón warned from Guatemala, which is now receiving most of those fleeing from its neighbor.
The “deterioration of civic space” in El Salvador did not happen overnight, according to all the sources consulted by Agencia Ocote.
Abraham Abrego explained Bukele developed a strategy to persecute his opponents that began with opposition political parties.
To do so, in May 2021, the first decree of a Legislative Assembly loyal to him was to replace the five constitutional judges and the attorney general. With them, Bukele secured control of the three branches of government and the authority responsible for criminal prosecution. In addition, the Constitutional Chamber backed his run for reelection, even though the law prohibited it.
The persecution of his opponents was followed by his “war on gangs,” which began with a state of emergency in March 2022 and remains in effect more than three years later.
Although violence has declined, the state of emergency prohibits the entire population from exercising fundamental rights such as organizing, protesting or legal defense. International organizations have denounced arbitrary detentions based on this measure.
Later, various social sectors, media outlets and journalists began to be harassed and criminalized on social media. This gradually expanded.
“He was very clever in the way of persecution, so people who weren’t affected didn’t say anything,” Abrego said.
The persecution mechanisms have been varied “but sophisticated and coordinated,” said Sergio Arauz.
In addition to stigmatization, the pattern is: “visits from police officers, interrogations at homes, warnings from government or prosecutor’s office sources that there is a risk.”
Then come arbitrary judicial proceedings. “First detain, and then investigate,” Arauz said.
Persecution has followed a logical order that began with politicians and criminals — whom most of the population rejects — and then moved on to critical voices, according to the exilees interviewed:
The turning point against dissent came three months ago, in what interviewees call “the May escalation.”
It allegedly began when El Faro published, at the beginning of that month, videos with interviews of gang leaders revealing links to the government.
Days later, the outlet warned that it had information that the prosecutor’s office would issue arrest warrants for journalists.
In the following weeks, arrests were carried out on various grounds. They included transportation business owners, community activists, defender Ruth López and constitutional lawyer Enrique Anaya.
By detaining López and Anaya, two prominent lawyers, the aim was to create the same social fear as in Guatemala when José Rubén Zamora was arrested, according to Marielos Monzón.
“It is a case meant to set an example because they are very well-known people,” Monzón said. “If they did this with a high-profile person, they can do it with anyone. That is the message.”
Two more actions in recent weeks have consolidated Nayib Bukele’s dictatorial regime. Both were carried out by a Legislative Assembly controlled by the ruling party, Nuevas Ideas.
The first was the approval, that same month of May, of the Foreign Agents Law, which takes effect in September and imposes a 30% tax on organizations that receive foreign funds.
It also allows the government to criminalize and ban at its discretion the operations of social service organizations.
The second was the approval of indefinite presidential reelection. Bukele will now be able to remain in power as only the regimes of Nicaragua and Venezuela in the Americas allow.
Guatemalan organizations have responded to exiles with various support strategies. The Unit for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders of Guatemala (Udefegua for its initials in Spanish) has been one of them.
Brenda Guillén, general coordinator, said they have worked with organizations in El Salvador for years to provide support.
Their work has been more focused on land and environmental issues, especially after that country passed a law in 2024 allowing mining, which had been banned.
However, she said in recent months they have seen an increase in criminalization of other sectors.
“From the people already in the country, we can identify four sectors being criminalized: journalists, lawyers, organization staff more linked to academia, and land defenders.”
For this reason, Udefegua has strengthened its programs on self-management of security, risk analysis and protection plans. They adapted their “experience in protecting Guatemalan defenders to support the newcomers from El Salvador.”
“We try to provide support in strengthening knowledge for their stay in the country. Also in the case of those who are only in transit,” Guillén said.
The RCP, meanwhile, has implemented a comprehensive program that includes emergency mobility funds and coordination with international organizations for relocation.
There is also support from Media Defence, a legal aid organization based in the United Kingdom, Monzón said.
“Initial support was mobility, with emergency funds, to protect people’s integrity and allow them to relocate,” Monzón explained.
They also carried out an exchange between Guatemalan and Salvadoran journalists. Not only to show solidarity, according to Monzón, but also “to create support networks among colleagues and plan strategies for continuing news work from exile.”
These organizations have also joined together to advocate before international bodies. The goal is to show criminalization, which has not stopped in Guatemala, is now also increasing in the neighboring country.
The prospects of change in El Salvador that would allow the return of exiles are bleak. Arauz was blunt: “There are no signs that say the president will one day wake up more democratic.”
Abrego believes repression will expand. “The next level will be against the base,” he warned. When organizations are eliminated, he said, the government can direct repression against “the population that protests for services like water, pensions or housing.”
Monzón sees an accelerated replica of the Nicaraguan model, where many ordinary people who dared to protest had their property and even their nationality taken away.
“Before it gets better, this is going to get worse. We have never known an authoritarian regime that improves human rights conditions and freedoms,” she said.
The consolidation of the authoritarian model in El Salvador, according to those interviewed, is part of a regional trend that threatens all of Central America.
Edited by Carmen Quintela
