El Salvador / Americas

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 17 other international organizations in a joint statement Wednesday warning about the swift deterioration in press freedom in El Salvador, after at least 40 journalists have had to leave the country due to a sustained pattern of harassment, intimidation, and arbitrary restrictions on their work. The Salvadoran Journalists Association…

Journalists at El Faro knew the risks when they published a series of interviews with gang members alleging long-standing ties between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and criminal groups. They didn’t know how quickly the crackdown would escalate. Within days of publication last month, sources close to El Salvador’s attorney general’s office warned that arrest warrants…

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 21 other international and local press freedom organizations in a joint statement Friday rejecting laws approved in El Salvador and Nicaragua that could severely affect press freedom, freedom of expression, and access to information in those countries. On May 16, Nicaraguan lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment that allows the…

Mexico City, May 30, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday called on El Salvador to repeal a newly enacted “foreign agents” law that poses a serious threat to press freedom by targeting media outlets, nonprofit organizations, and individual journalists who receive international funding. “President Nayib Bukele’s foreign agents law is a blatant move to…

Mexico City, May 7, 2025—Salvadoran authorities should drop all criminal proceedings against journalists with El Faro, after the independent news site published video interviews with two gang leaders about their alleged years-long relationship with President Nayib Bukele, said the Committee to Protect Journalists Wednesday. “Treating journalism as a criminal act deprives Salvadorans of essential information,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America…

Twenty-four civil society organizations working in seven Latin American countries, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, released a November 2024 report titled “Impact of state censorship measures on the right to freedom of expression in the Americas,” which included information provided during the 190th regular session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in July 2024.  The press freedom groups work in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador,…

Nearly 80,000 people have been detained, and up to 200 may have died in state custody, since El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s declared a state of emergency in March 2022, temporarily suspending constitutional rights and civil liberties in the country in the name of fighting gang violence. Local journalists and human rights organizations have raised concerns that Bukele, who…

São Paulo, October 10, 2024—CPJ welcomes the civil complaint filed in a U.S. court against Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, one of several Salvadoran military officers alleged to be connected to the March 17, 1982 ambush and killing of Dutch TV journalists Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Joop Willemsen, and Hans ter Laag in Chalatenango, El Salvador, during their coverage of…

Guatemala City, July 28, 2023—El Salvador authorities must allow journalist Victor Barahona to work freely and without fear of rearrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. Authorities first arrested Barahona, who hosts a political affairs show on the local station Canal 29 in the northeastern city of Apopa, in June 2022 and held him…