85,000 citizens of El Salvador have been imprisoned, most of them without fair trials. In a May 20 broadcast of The World (from PRX), Marco Werman interviews Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, the Salvadoran human rights group. Werman and Bullock talk about the recent arrest and detention of Ruth Lopez.
https://theworld.org/segments/2025/05/20/lawyer-and-human-rights-defender-arrested-in-el-salvador
Lopez has been the head of the anti-corruption unit of Cristosal. The website of Cristosal notes that the organization “grew out of relationships and a belief that together we can build better communities and societies. Two friends, the Very Reverend Richard Bower and the Right Reverend Martin Barahona, planted the seed of Cristosal in 2000 with the hope of growing a fruitful connection between people in North America and El Salvador. To this day, our work is inspired by the Anglican communion’s commitment to justice and the dignity of every human being and demonstrated through the role of the Church during El Salvador’s civil war.”
Lopez’ anti-corruption team of investigators investigated cases of corruption of the Bulkeley administration during the pandemic, around Bitcoin laws, and around environmental regulations –– she ended up presenting 15 formal complaints to the attorney general’s office, cases that were well investigated. The response that she got from the attorney general’s office was silence. Ruth is an ally of people who are victims of abuses of power; she was with the family members of medical personnel that died in the pandemic and never received the pensions that were promised to them. Now she’s in jail.
More than 100 civil society organizations including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the protection of human rights defenders, have condemned her enforced disappearance and detention.
There is little doubt that Bukele’s regime has brought order out of chaos in El Salvador. But the price of that order is a corrupt and repressive government. Still, many citizens appreciate that order has been wrought from utter chaos.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/12/americas/el-salvador-returners-bukele-crackdown
At the same time, Bullock speculates that the “wave of repression” over the past two weeks is because Bukele feels emboldened by his relationship with the Trump administration and his popularity has declined. Bullock also notes as a factor the withdrawal of the U.S. in the region as an ally of human rights organizations since Trump resumed the Presidency of the U.S.
Bullock points out Bukele has announced a 30% tax on NGO like Cristosal, with the aim of crushing civil society. As he explains, tens of thousands of Salvadoran families have experienced the “drama” of “police or soldiers showing up at your house in the middle of the night and pulling your loved ones out of their bed and their underwear and disappearing them in prisons without due process rights. . . . that’s what’s happened to 85,000 Salvadorans and many of those people are innocent.”
So, it’s perfectly legal to avoid due process and fair trials in El Salvador. And while many Salvadorans appreciate that order has been restored, there is no necessary opposition between political and civil rights and good public order. El Salvador could have safety and order without corruption and the jailing of innocent citizens.