El Salvador

Central America presents a complex panorama for freedom of expression because of the permanence and rise of authoritarian governments backed up by unjustified exception regimes, as in El Salvador and Honduras, and the continuity of anti-democracy actors in the judiciary, as in Guatemala.

Journalists face growing intimidation and censorship under President Bukele’s administration, threatening the state of press freedom in El Salvador.

According to researchers, El Salvador continues to fall short of basic cybersecurity compliance standards and regulations, preventing any affected civilians from mitigating the potential risks they face.

Signatories call on El Salvador’s authorities to respect and protect press freedom and, in particular, to establish favourable and safe long-term conditions guaranteeing the ability of journalists to work freely.

The political landscape going Into the 2024 elections.

This is an extract from the report on El Salvador, from the series of reports to come out of the research under the Unfreedom Monitor.

Bukele’s government uses paid influencers and ‘likely bot farms’ to tweet pro-government messages ‘tens of thousands of times’ on a given topic while masking their origin to create the appearance of authentic grassroots support.

Ten months ago, Access Now and the Citizen Lab confirmed that several journalists were targeted with the use of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware on a massive scale in El Salvador.

The Legislative Assembly passed a law declaring a “state of emergency” that suspends for 30 days the rights to freedom of association and assembly, and privacy in communications, as well as some due process protections.

Salvadoran authorities should continue providing support to Cuban journalists Esteban Rodríguez and Héctor Luis Valdés, and Cuban authorities should cease forcing journalists into exile.

The bill would require entities and people who receive funding or support from abroad to register as a “foreign agent” with the Interior Ministry and would severely limit the activities in which these organizations can engage.

The undersigned civil society organizations, committed to the defense of the rule of law, human rights and democracy in Latin America, strongly reject the decisions adopted on May 1 by the Salvadoran Congress to arbitrarily remove from office the judges and alternate judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Attorney General, and to irregularly appoint their replacements, in violation of the constitutional and international legal framework, and warn of a serious risk to the preservation of the democratic system in the country.

“President Bukele appears committed to continuing his anti-press rhetoric and spreading rumors in a campaign to damage El Salvador’s independent media,” said CPJ.

Salvadoran authorities should make public any details about an alleged criminal investigation into ‘InSight Crime’ journalist Héctor Silva Ávalos and stop using official social media channels to criticize and harass independent journalists.