El Salvador’s Journalists Association Leaves the Country After Government Intimidation 

El Salvador’s Journalists Association announced this week it would move its legal status to an unnamed country as a result of the foreign agents law passed earlier this year, which is widely perceived as a tool to silence dissent, the Associated Press reported. 

The association, founded in 1936, had already announced in September its intentions to close its offices in the country. On Wednesday, it said that it was necessary to relocate abroad to continue defending journalists’ rights and press freedom.  

It added that it will transfer its legal status to another country in the region, but did not specify which one, LatAm Journalism Review added. 

“This was a difficult decision, taken after evaluating the urgent need to work without limitations, pressures,” the group said in a statement. 

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has tightened his hold on power since being reelected in a landslide victory last year. He credited his electoral success to fighting the country’s powerful gangs.  

In May, the country passed the foreign agents law, which imposes a 30 percent tax on funds nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) obtain from outside El Salvador and requires them to register as foreign agents.  

Critics argue that the law is a tool to silence critical voices by targeting their international funding – Bukele has accused NGOs, such as human rights organizations that challenge his policies, of being sympathetic to the gangs.  

The El Salvador Journalists Association was the fourth NGO to close operations in the Central American country after the passage of the law. It also reported registering 43 Salvadoran journalists who left the country between March and June, most of whom worked for independent online news outlets. They have not returned, the group said, because they fear being arrested following the detention of human rights advocates earlier this year. 

Other prominent organizations have already relocated outside El Salvador. The human rights group Cristosal, for example, went into exile following the arrest in May of Ruth Eleonora López, head of its anti-corruption and justice unit.