Mexico – El Salvador police arrested an eminent human rights lawyer who is a frank critic of President Nayib Bukele.
Ruth Eleonora López, who heads the crystal anti-corruption program, a human rights non-profit organization, was arrested at home in San Salvador on Sunday evening.
In an article on X, the prosecutors accused López of “collaborating in the theft of state chests” during his stay in the government of Salvador Sánchez Cerrén, a left which was president before Bukele.
Cristal officials said the accusations against López were a politically motivated act and part of the “systematic strategy of the Bukele government of the criminalization of those who defend human rights”.
In a country where many people are afraid of denouncing the government, López was a frank Bukele critic, which took office in 2019 and has increasingly adopted authoritarian tactics.
To repress the gangs which, for years, dominated life in Salvador, Bukele declared the state of emergency three years ago which suspended civil freedoms, including a regular procedure, and facilitated the imprisonment of around 85,000 people. López and his organization say that tens of thousands of innocent people have been unjustly detained.
She and Cristals spoke up when Bukele pushed a court decision which enabled her to arise for a second term despite a constitutional ban. They denounced the use by the government of Bukele of spy software to monitor human rights defenders and journalists and exposed apparent corruption in the allocation of contracts during the Pandemic COVID-19.
Bukele, a close ally of President Trump, who this year has sent hundreds of American deportees to be accommodated in a Salvadoran prison, has intensified his attacks on criticism in recent weeks.
He recently proposed a new law which would impose a 30% tax on donations to non -governmental organizations, including Cristals. And he ordered the arrests of 16 owners of bus companies for sabotage after having failed to comply with a decree that all transport in the country should be released.
In a press release, Cristals said he did not know the place where López.
“The refusal of the authorities to disclose its location or to authorize access to its legal representatives is a blatant violation of the regular procedure, the right to legal defense and international standards of judicial protection,” said the group.
The prison guards transfer deportees from the United States, accused of being members of Venezuelan gangs, at the Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 16, 2025.
(El Salvador Presidential Press Office)
Last year, López was appointed one of the 100 most influential women in the world by the BBC, who welcomed it for promoting “political transparency and the responsibility of citizens”.
His arrest triggered an outcry. The Gregory Meeks (DN.Y.) representative was one of the many members of the Congress to denounce the arrest. He wrote on X that he was “concerned with the arrest of the anti-corruption activist Ruth López and what it means for the authoritarian trajectory of El Salvador”.
A coalition of human rights groups, notably Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, demanded the release of López and said that they were “deeply concerned about the environment of increasingly omnipresent fear that threatens freedoms in the country”.
A spokesperson for the president's office did not respond to requests for comments on the arrest of López.
