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**El Salvador Rights Group Cristosal Flees Country, Citing Government Persecution**

**GUATEMALA CITY** – Cristosal, a prominent human rights and anti-corruption watchdog in El Salvador, has announced it is suspending its operations in the country and relocating its staff, citing escalating government persecution under President Nayib Bukele. The organization, which has operated in El Salvador for 25 years, made the announcement on Thursday, stating that it would continue its work in exile.

Cristosal’s Executive Director, Noah Bullock, speaking from Guatemala, told Reuters that the decision was made due to the increasing likelihood of fabricated criminal charges and the impossibility of a fair trial. “When it became clear that the government was prepared to persecute us criminally and that there is no possibility of defence or impartial trial, that makes it unviable to take those risks anymore,” Bullock said.

The move comes amidst a broader crackdown on dissenting voices by the Bukele government. Ruth Lopez, a prominent anti-corruption advocate with Cristosal, was arrested in May on corruption charges, a move condemned by Amnesty International and the United Nations. Bukele’s government also recently enacted a law requiring NGOs that receive foreign funding to register with the government and pay additional taxes.

Cristosal has been critical of Bukele’s administration, particularly its ongoing “state of exception,” declared in March 2022, which has granted the government broad powers and suspended key civil liberties in the name of combating gang activity. While the government claims its policies have led to a significant reduction in violent crime, critics argue that the state of exception is being used to target human rights advocates and silence opposition. They point to mass arrests, abysmal prison conditions, and the suppression of dissent as evidence of an erosion of rights.

Cristosal’s statement released on Thursday, the group declared, “Under a permanent state of exception and near-total control of all institutions, El Salvador has ceased to be a state of rights. Expressing an opinion or demanding basic rights today can land you in jail.”

Cristosal joins other organizations, such as the investigative news outlet El Faro, which relocated its administrative and legal operations outside of El Salvador in April, citing similar concerns about government harassment and surveillance.

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