Human rights attorney who criticized Bukele is detained in El Salvador
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- Ruth Eleonora López was an outspoken critic of President Nayib Bukele.
- López’s supporters call the charges against her part of the Bukele government’s “systematic strategy of criminalization of those who defend human rights.”
MEXICO CITY — Police in El Salvador have arrested a prominent human rights attorney who is an outspoken critic of President Nayib Bukele.
Ruth Eleonora López, who heads the anti-corruption program at Cristosal, a human rights nonprofit, was arrested at her home in San Salvador late Sunday night.
In a post on X, prosecutors accused López of “collaborating in the theft of funds from state coffers” during her time working in the government of Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a leftist who served as president before Bukele.
El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele is a hero of the American right and portrays himself as a hip, innovative disrupter-in-chief willing to break norms to save his country. Critics say he’s just an old-school dictator.
Officials at Cristosal said the charges against López were a politically motivated act and part of the Bukele government’s “systematic strategy of criminalization of those who defend human rights.”
In a country where many people are afraid to speak out against the government, López has been an outspoken critic of Bukele, who took office in 2019 and has increasingly adopted authoritarian tactics.
To crack down on gangs that for years had dominated life in El Salvador, Bukele declared a state of emergency three years ago that has suspended civil liberties, including due process, and facilitated the imprisonment of about 85,000 people. López and her organization say tens of thousands of innocent people have been unfairly detained.
She and Cristosal spoke out when Bukele pushed for a court decision that allowed him to run for a second term despite a constitutional ban. They denounced the Bukele government’s use of spyware to monitor human rights defenders and journalists and exposed apparent corruption in the awarding of contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bukele, a close ally of President Trump, who this year sent hundreds of U.S. deportees to be housed in a Salvadoran prison, has ramped up his attacks on critics in recent weeks.
He recently proposed a new law that would impose a 30% tax on donations to nongovernmental organizations, including Cristosal. And he ordered the arrests of 16 bus company owners on charges of sabotage after they failed to comply with a decree that all transportation in the nation should be made free.
In a statement, Cristosal said it did not know of López’s whereabouts.
“The authorities’ refusal to disclose her location or to allow access to her legal representatives is a blatant violation of due process, the right to legal defense and international standards of judicial protection,” the group said.
Last year, López was named one of the 100 most influential women in the world by the BBC, which lauded her for promoting “political transparency and citizen accountability.”
Her arrest sparked outcry. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) was one of several members of Congress to decry the arrest. He wrote on X that he was “concerned by the arrest of anti-corruption activist Ruth López & what it means for El Salvador’s authoritarian trajectory.”
A coalition of human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch demanded López’s release and said they were “deeply concerned at the increasingly pervasive environment of fear that threatens freedoms in the country.”
A spokeswoman for the president’s office did not respond to requests for comment about López’s arrest.
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