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News18
an hour ago
- Politics
- News18
El Salvadors new wave of political exiles say history repeating itself
Last Updated: San Salvador, Jul 23 (AP) The fiercest voices of dissent against President Nayib Bukele have long feared a widespread crackdown. They weathered police raids on their homes, watched their friends being thrown into jail and jumped between safe houses so they can stay in El Salvador. Then they were told: Leave immediately. It's exile or prison. A combination of high-profile detentions, a new 'foreign agents" law, violent repression of peaceful protesters and the risk of imminent government detention has driven more than 100 political exiles to flee in recent months. The biggest exodus of journalists, lawyers, academics, environmentalists and human rights activists in years is a dark reminder of the nation's brutal civil war decades ago, when tens of thousands of people are believed to have escaped. Exiles who spoke to The Associated Press say they are scattered across Central America and Mexico with little more than backpacks and a lingering question of where they will end up. 'We're living through a moment where history is repeating itself," said Ingrid Escobar, leader of the human rights legal group Socorro Juridico, who fled El Salvador with her two children. 'We've lost everything," she said. We'll have to leave this country' Bukele, 43, has long been criticized for chipping away at democracy and committing human rights abuses in his war on gangs, in which the government waived constitutional rights and arrested more than 1 per cent of El Salvador's population. Activists and journalists say for years they have faced mounting harassment and threats from the self-described 'world's coolest dictator," whose tongue-in-cheek social media persona, bet on bitcoin and tough-on-crime discourse has gained him the adoration of many on the American right. Despite 60 per cent of Salvadorans saying they fear publicly expressing political opinions in a recent poll, Bukele continues to enjoy soaring levels of approval because violence plummeted following his crackdown on gangs. Escobar — one of the populist's most vocal critics — said that as her organization challenged the government through thousands of legal cases, police constantly surveilled her family, showing up outside her mother's house and her 7- and 11-year-old children's schools. 'One day, we'll have to leave this country," she told them, hoping it wasn't true. But things have reached an inflection point in recent months as Bukele grows emboldened by his alliance with President Donald Trump, namely due to the detention of hundreds of Venezuelan deportees in a Salvadoran prison made for gangs. In May, the El Salvador government passed a 'foreign agents" law resembling legislation used by Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua to criminalize dissent by targeting organizations receiving overseas funding. Shortly after, police detained Ruth López, an anti-corruption lawyer at El Salvador's top human rights organization Cristosal, accusing her of corruption. López denies the allegations. As police escorted her in shackles to a June court appearance, she shouted: 'They're not going to silence me! I want a public trial!" Her detention came amid the arrests of several critics. On Thursday, Cristosal announced it had quietly evacuated all of its staff to Guatemala and Honduras, and shut down operations in El Salvador. 'The justice system has been weaponised against us," said Cristosal leader Noah Bullock. 'Nobody in El Salvador has any doubt that the government can detain whoever it wants and disappear them in prisons indefinitely." 'If I stay, will I die?' Escobar soon received news that her name appears on a list with 11 other journalists and activists targeted for detention. Escobar, who was about to enter treatment for sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, worried that if she was thrown in prison, she wouldn't receive care. Around a third of hundreds of deaths in prisons under Bukele were caused by a lack of medical attention. 'I asked myself one question: If I stay, will I die?'" she said. In June, she and her children slipped across the Guatemala border, flew to the US and then to another Latin American country. She looks over her shoulder every day. Many of the exiles asked AP to not disclose their locations, fearing they could be tracked down. Others who have fled were too scared to speak on the record, even anonymously. A couple flees Journalist Mónica Rodríguez, 40, and her husband, 37-year-old activist Steve Magaña, are in exile. They were among a handful of people who documented on video Salvadoran police violently quashing a peaceful demonstration. Hundreds of protesters, including children and elderly people, wanted the president to stop the eviction of their rural community on a road near his house. 'It contradicted Bukele's discourse," Rodríguez said. 'They were repressing people and we were the ones evidencing it." Bukele later posted on the social platform X that the community had been 'manipulated" by NGOs and journalists, then announced the foreign agents law. Soon came the arrests and more people fled the country. Rodríguez said police showed photos of her and her husband to the community, asking where they were. Rodríguez and Magaña were already scared after masked police officers raided their home months earlier, seizing computers, cellphones, Magaña's credit cards and hard drives containing Rodríguez's reporting materials. The couple went into hiding, hopping between four safe houses in San Salvador before leaving the country. In June, the Association of Journalists in El Salvador reported that at least 40 journalists fled the country in a matter of weeks. 'We've lost it all' For some, including 55-year-old Jorge Beltrán, a reporter who served in the Salvadoran military during the civil war, it's a case of déjà vu. Between 1979 and 1992, war raged between a repressive, US-backed government and leftist guerrillas. While there's no universally agreed upon number, historians believe tens of thousands of political exiles fled, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists. The UN estimates around 1 million people left the country over the course of the war. 'I never thought I'd live through something like that again," Beltrán said. 'The armed conflict paved the way for a fledgling democracy we enjoyed for a few years. … Something was achieved. And now we've lost it all." The journalist investigating corruption in El Salvador for the newspaper El Diario de Hoy said he pushed back against legal attacks before going into exile. Beltrán was sued by a business owner with close ties to the government over 'moral damages" for his investigation that uncovered evidence of corruption. He was ordered to pay USD10 million by a Salvadoran court. Meanwhile, he said, officials constantly harassed him for not revealing his sources in stories about drug trafficking and continued forced disappearances. He eventually received a call from a government official warning that police might come for him. 'I recommend you leave the country. You're one of the objectives' they're looking to silence," Beltrán said he was told. 'You can leave journalism, but they'll make you pay for what you already did." He left El Salvador alone with two bags of medicine for high blood pressure and his war injuries, a book about government repression and two letters from his wife and daughter saying they hoped they would meet again one day. top videos View all With bags still packed in another Central American country, he said he wants to seek asylum in Canada. Noting Trump and Bukele are allies, it's the only place in the hemisphere he thinks he will feel safe. 'Even here, I'm stuck behind bars," he said, speaking from the home with barred windows where he's hiding. 'Exile is a prison." (AP) RD RD (This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI) view comments First Published: July 23, 2025, 20:15 IST News agency-feeds El Salvadors new wave of political exiles say history repeating itself Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. 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The Hill
an hour ago
- Politics
- The Hill
El Salvador's new wave of political exiles say history is repeating itself
The fiercest voices of dissent against President Nayib Bukele have long feared a widespread crackdown. They weathered police raids on their homes, watched their friends being thrown into jail and jumped between safe houses so they can stay in El Salvador. Then they received a warning: Leave immediately. It's exile or prison. A combination of high-profile detentions, a new 'foreign agents' law, violent repression of peaceful protesters and the risk of imminent government detention has driven more than 100 political exiles to flee in recent months. The biggest exodus of journalists, lawyers, academics, environmentalists and human rights activists in years is a dark reminder of the nation's brutal civil war decades ago, when tens of thousands of people are believed to have escaped. Exiles who spoke to The Associated Press say they are scattered across Central America and Mexico with little more than backpacks and a lingering question of where they will end up. 'We're living through a moment where history is repeating itself,' said Ingrid Escobar, leader of the human rights legal group Socorro Juridico, who fled El Salvador with her two children. 'We've lost everything,' she said. Bukele's administration did not respond to requests for comment. 'We'll have to leave this country' Bukele, 43, has long been criticized for chipping away at democracy and committing human rights abuses in his war on gangs, in which the government waived constitutional rights and arrested more than 1% of El Salvador's population. Activists and journalists say for years they have faced mounting harassment and threats from the self-described 'world's coolest dictator,' whose tongue-in-cheek social media persona, bet on bitcoin and tough-on-crime discourse has gained him the adoration of many on the American right. Despite 60% of Salvadorans saying they fear publicly expressing political opinions in a recent poll, Bukele continues to enjoy soaring levels of approval because violence plummeted following his crackdown on gangs. Escobar — one of the populist's most vocal critics — said that as her organization challenged the government through thousands of legal cases, police constantly surveilled her family, showing up outside her mother's house and her 7- and 11-year-old children's schools. 'One day, we'll have to leave this country,' she told them, hoping it wasn't true. But things have reached an inflection point in recent months as Bukele grows emboldened by his alliance with President Donald Trump, namely due to the detention of hundreds of Venezuelan deportees in a Salvadoran prison made for gangs. In May, the El Salvador government passed a 'foreign agents' law resembling legislation used by Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua to criminalize dissent by targeting organizations receiving overseas funding. Shortly after, police detained Ruth López, an anti-corruption lawyer at El Salvador's top human rights organization Cristosal, accusing her of corruption. López denies the allegations. As police escorted her in shackles to a June court appearance, she shouted: 'They're not going to silence me! I want a public trial!' Her detention came amid the arrests of several critics. On Thursday, Cristosal announced it had quietly evacuated all of its staff to Guatemala and Honduras, and shut down operations in El Salvador. 'The justice system has been weaponized against us,' said Cristosal leader Noah Bullock. 'Nobody in El Salvador has any doubt that the government can detain whoever it wants and disappear them in prisons indefinitely.' 'If I stay, will I die?' Escobar soon received news that her name appears on a list with 11 other journalists and activists targeted for detention. Escobar, who was about to enter treatment for sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, worried that if she was thrown in prison, she wouldn't receive care. Around a third of hundreds of deaths in prisons under Bukele were caused by a lack of medical attention. 'I asked myself one question: 'If I stay, will I die?'' she said. In June, she and her children slipped across the Guatemala border, flew to the U.S. and then to another Latin American country. She looks over her shoulder every day. Many of the exiles asked AP to not disclose their locations, fearing they could be tracked down. Others who have fled were too scared to speak on the record, even anonymously. A couple flees Journalist Mónica Rodríguez, 40, and her husband, 37-year-old activist Steve Magaña, are in exile. They were among a handful of people who documented on video Salvadoran police violently quashing a peaceful demonstration. Hundreds of protesters, including children and elderly people, wanted the president to stop the eviction of their rural community on a road near his house. 'It contradicted Bukele's discourse,' Rodríguez said. 'They were repressing people and we were the ones evidencing it.' Bukele later posted on the social platform X that the community had been 'manipulated' by NGOs and journalists, then announced the foreign agents law. Soon came the arrests and more people fled the country. Rodríguez said police showed photos of her and her husband to the community, asking where they were. Rodríguez and Magaña were already scared after masked police officers raided their home months earlier, seizing computers, cellphones, Magaña's credit cards and hard drives containing Rodríguez's reporting materials. The couple went into hiding, hopping between four safe houses in San Salvador before leaving the country. In June, the Association of Journalists in El Salvador reported that at least 40 journalists fled the country in a matter of weeks. 'We've lost it all' For some, including 55-year-old Jorge Beltrán, a reporter who served in the Salvadoran military during the civil war, it's a case of déjà vu. Between 1979 and 1992, war raged between a repressive, U.S.-backed government and leftist guerrillas. While there's no universally agreed upon number, historians believe tens of thousands of political exiles fled, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists. The U.N. estimates around 1 million people left the country over the course of the war. 'I never thought I'd live through something like that again,' Beltrán said. 'The armed conflict paved the way for a fledgling democracy we enjoyed for a few years. … Something was achieved. And now we've lost it all.' The journalist investigating corruption in El Salvador for the newspaper El Diario de Hoy said he pushed back against legal attacks before going into exile. Beltrán was sued by a business owner with close ties to the government over 'moral damages' for his investigation that uncovered evidence of corruption. He was ordered to pay $10 million by a Salvadoran court. Meanwhile, he said, officials constantly harassed him for not revealing his sources in stories about drug trafficking and continued forced disappearances. He eventually received a call from a government official warning that police might come for him. 'I recommend you leave the country. You're one of the 'objectives' they're looking to silence,' Beltrán said he was told. 'You can leave journalism, but they'll make you pay for what you already did.' He left El Salvador alone with two bags of medicine for high blood pressure and his war injuries, a book about government repression and two letters from his wife and daughter saying they hoped they would meet again one day. With bags still packed in another Central American country, he said he wants to seek asylum in Canada. Noting Trump and Bukele are allies, it's the only place in the hemisphere he thinks he will feel safe. 'Even here, I'm stuck behind bars,' he said, speaking from the home with barred windows where he's hiding. 'Exile is a prison.'
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
El Salvador's new wave of political exiles say history is repeating itself
The fiercest voices of dissent against President Nayib Bukele have long feared a widespread crackdown. They weathered police raids on their homes, watched their friends being thrown into jail and jumped between safe houses so they can stay in El Salvador. Then they were told: Leave immediately. It's exile or prison. A combination of high-profile detentions, a new 'foreign agents' law, violent repression of peaceful protesters and the risk of imminent government detention has driven more than 100 political exiles to flee in recent months. The biggest exodus of journalists, lawyers, academics, environmentalists and human rights activists in years is a dark reminder of the nation's brutal civil war decades ago, when tens of thousands of people are believed to have escaped. Exiles who spoke to The Associated Press say they are scattered across Central America and Mexico with little more than backpacks and a lingering question of where they will end up. 'We're living through a moment where history is repeating itself,' said Ingrid Escobar, leader of the human rights legal group Socorro Juridico, who fled El Salvador with her two children. 'We've lost everything,' she said. Bukele's administration did not respond to requests for comment. 'We'll have to leave this country' Bukele, 43, has long been criticized for chipping away at democracy and committing human rights abuses in his war on gangs, in which the government waived constitutional rights and arrested more than 1% of El Salvador's population. Activists and journalists say for years they have faced mounting harassment and threats from the self-described 'world's coolest dictator,' whose tongue-in-cheek social media persona, bet on bitcoin and tough-on-crime discourse has gained him the adoration of many on the American right. Despite 60% of Salvadorans saying they fear publicly expressing political opinions in a recent poll, Bukele continues to enjoy soaring levels of approval because violence plummeted following his crackdown on gangs. Escobar — one of the populist's most vocal critics — said that as her organization challenged the government through thousands of legal cases, police constantly surveilled her family, showing up outside her mother's house and her 7- and 11-year-old children's schools. 'One day, we'll have to leave this country,' she told them, hoping it wasn't true. But things have reached an inflection point in recent months as Bukele grows emboldened by his alliance with President Donald Trump, namely due to the detention of hundreds of Venezuelan deportees in a Salvadoran prison made for gangs. In May, the El Salvador government passed a 'foreign agents' law resembling legislation used by Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua to criminalize dissent by targeting organizations receiving overseas funding. Shortly after, police detained Ruth López, an anti-corruption lawyer at El Salvador's top human rights organization Cristosal, accusing her of corruption. López denies the allegations. As police escorted her in shackles to a June court appearance, she shouted: 'They're not going to silence me! I want a public trial!' Her detention came amid the arrests of several critics. On Thursday, Cristosal announced it had quietly evacuated all of its staff to Guatemala and Honduras, and shut down operations in El Salvador. 'The justice system has been weaponized against us,' said Cristosal leader Noah Bullock. 'Nobody in El Salvador has any doubt that the government can detain whoever it wants and disappear them in prisons indefinitely.' 'If I stay, will I die?' Escobar soon received news that her name appears on a list with 11 other journalists and activists targeted for detention. Escobar, who was about to enter treatment for sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, worried that if she was thrown in prison, she wouldn't receive care. Around a third of hundreds of deaths in prisons under Bukele were caused by a lack of medical attention. 'I asked myself one question: 'If I stay, will I die?'' she said. In June, she and her children slipped across the Guatemala border, flew to the U.S. and then to another Latin American country. She looks over her shoulder every day. Many of the exiles asked AP to not disclose their locations, fearing they could be tracked down. Others who have fled were too scared to speak on the record, even anonymously. A couple flees Journalist Mónica Rodríguez, 40, and her husband, 37-year-old activist Steve Magaña, are in exile. They were among a handful of people who documented on video Salvadoran police violently quashing a peaceful demonstration. Hundreds of protesters, including children and elderly people, wanted the president to stop the eviction of their rural community on a road near his house. 'It contradicted Bukele's discourse,' Rodríguez said. 'They were repressing people and we were the ones evidencing it.' Bukele later posted on the social platform X that the community had been 'manipulated' by NGOs and journalists, then announced the foreign agents law. Soon came the arrests and more people fled the country. Rodríguez said police showed photos of her and her husband to the community, asking where they were. Rodríguez and Magaña were already scared after masked police officers raided their home months earlier, seizing computers, cellphones, Magaña's credit cards and hard drives containing Rodríguez's reporting materials. The couple went into hiding, hopping between four safe houses in San Salvador before leaving the country. In June, the Association of Journalists in El Salvador reported that at least 40 journalists fled the country in a matter of weeks. 'We've lost it all' For some, including 55-year-old Jorge Beltrán, a reporter who served in the Salvadoran military during the civil war, it's a case of déjà vu. Between 1979 and 1992, war raged between a repressive, U.S.-backed government and leftist guerrillas. While there's no universally agreed upon number, historians believe tens of thousands of political exiles fled, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists. The U.N. estimates around 1 million people left the country over the course of the war. 'I never thought I'd live through something like that again,' Beltrán said. 'The armed conflict paved the way for a fledgling democracy we enjoyed for a few years. … Something was achieved. And now we've lost it all.' The journalist investigating corruption in El Salvador for the newspaper El Diario de Hoy said he pushed back against legal attacks before going into exile. Beltrán was sued by a business owner with close ties to the government over 'moral damages' for his investigation that uncovered evidence of corruption. He was ordered to pay $10 million by a Salvadoran court. Meanwhile, he said, officials constantly harassed him for not revealing his sources in stories about drug trafficking and continued forced disappearances. He eventually received a call from a government official warning that police might come for him. 'I recommend you leave the country. You're one of the 'objectives' they're looking to silence,' Beltrán said he was told. 'You can leave journalism, but they'll make you pay for what you already did.' He left El Salvador alone with two bags of medicine for high blood pressure and his war injuries, a book about government repression and two letters from his wife and daughter saying they hoped they would meet again one day. With bags still packed in another Central American country, he said he wants to seek asylum in Canada. Noting Trump and Bukele are allies, it's the only place in the hemisphere he thinks he will feel safe. 'Even here, I'm stuck behind bars,' he said, speaking from the home with barred windows where he's hiding. 'Exile is a prison.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hunter Biden: Trump, Bukele both dictators
Hunter Biden took aim at President Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in an interview, calling both of them dictators. The remarks were part of a lengthy interview in which former President Biden's son made a number of colorful remarks about Democrats and Republicans alike. In the case of Bukele, the younger Biden demanded the leader of El Salvador send back to the United States people who Trump's administration had sent to that country as part of its deportation program. 'I'll tell you what, if I became president in two years from now, or four years from now, or three years from now, I would pick up the phone and call the f‑‑‑ing president in El Salvador and say, 'You either f‑‑‑ing send them back or I'm gonna f‑‑‑ing invade.' It's a f‑‑‑ing crime what they're doing. He's a f‑‑‑ing dictator thug,' Biden said during the interview released Monday. 'Bukele or Trump?' YouTube creator Andrew Callaghan asked. 'Both,' Biden responded. Bukele responded to Biden on the social platform X in a post that referenced the latter's past drug use. 'Is Hunter Biden sniffing powdered milk?' Bukele said in his Monday post that featured a clip with Biden's comments. In the first few months of his time back in the White House, Trump and his administration have heavily cracked down on immigration. In mid-March, the administration deported Venezuelans and Salvadorans to the infamous CECOT prison in El Salvador. The government of El Salvador has formally asserted it is the U.S., not El Salvador, that has 'legal responsibility' for Venezuelans held in CECOT. 'Luckily for the American people, a house cat has a better chance of being President than Hunter,' White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in an email to The Hill on Monday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Acting ICE director fires back at Hunter Biden
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director Todd Lyons on Wednesday slammed Hunter Biden, the son of former President Biden, over recent comments he made about immigration. 'That's just idiotic. It's dumb. You know, to make comments like that is crazy, because under the last administration, those are the problems we have right now. Under these former administrations, President Obama, President Biden, it's made illegal immigration common, in the commonplace, and that's just not the case,' Lyons told Fox News's John Roberts on 'America Reports.' In an interview released Monday, the younger Biden told YouTube creator Andrew Callaghan that 'all these Democrats say, you have to talk about and realize that people are really upset about illegal immigration.' 'F— you,' the former president's son continued. 'How do you think your hotel room gets cleaned? How do you think you have food on your f—— table? Who do you think washes your dishes?' 'I'll tell you what, if I became president in two years from now, or four years from now, or three years from now, I would pick up the phone and call the f‑‑‑ing president in El Salvador and say, 'You either f‑‑‑ing send them back or I'm gonna f‑‑‑ing invade.' It's a f‑‑‑ing crime what they're doing. He's a f‑‑‑ing dictator thug,' Biden added later. 'Bukele or Trump?' Callaghan asked, referencing Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. 'Both,' Biden responded. Bukele responded to Biden on the social platform X in a post that referenced the latter's past drug use. 'Is Hunter Biden sniffing powdered milk?' Bukele said in his Monday post that featured a clip with Biden's comments. During the first few months of his return to White House, President Trump and his administration have heavily cracked down on immigration. In mid-March, the administration deported Venezuelans and Salvadorans to the infamous CECOT prison in El Salvador. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
