SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
There is growing concern for the fate of a Salvadoran lawyer, Ruth Lopez, who was arrested nearly two weeks ago at her home in El Salvador. She leads the Anticorruption and Justice Program for the human rights group Cristosal. And she is an outspoken critic of that country's president and the state of emergency used to arrest and imprison thousands of alleged gang members without due process. The Salvadoran government is accusing Ruth Lopez of embezzling state funds. This comes amid a growing crackdown on dissent in El Salvador, and at a time when the government there continues its agreement with the Trump administration to imprison migrants deported from the U.S. Noah Bullock is executive director of Cristosal, and he joins us from San Salvador. Thanks so much for being with us.
NOAH BULLOCK: My pleasure, Scott.
SIMON: May I ask, do you know where your colleague is? What's the latest you've heard?
BULLOCK: We do know. Ruth was, for the first 40 hours of her detention, in the situation of forced disappearance. Actually, the United Nations Working Committee on Forced Disappearance (ph) put a statement out about that. Since that time, we know that she's in a holding facility in the capital. She's been able to meet with her family occasionally and had at least one meeting with her legal representative.
SIMON: She has been a critic of the Salvadoran government. Let me be blunt - do you think that's why she was arrested?
BULLOCK: I think there's no doubt about that. Ruth was the lead of our anticorruption unit. It's a team of investigators and lawyers that looked into corruption cases involving the Bukele administration. And she brought 15 cases to the attorney general - credible, well-investigated cases of corruption - and presented formal complaints. You know, I think she's one of the most credible invisible voices in society. She's a person who's recognized in communities because she spends her weekends working with communities that have been victims of abuses of power. So the effect of her detention is one to silence voices.
It's generated an environment of fear, and as you said, at the outset, comes at the back of a crackdown in which, you know, at least seven journalists have had to flee the country. A peaceful protest of a group of farmers was broken up by the military police, and five of their leaders were arrested. And so there's an environment of fear. Subsequently, the president ordered his legislator to approve a Russian-style foreign agents law, which, in effect, gives the executive wide, broad discretionary powers to crack down on civil society organizations.
SIMON: As I don't have to tell you, Mr. Bullock, the Salvadoran administration says the crackdown on gangs has led to a dramatic reduction in crime, and certainly the regime is very popular.
BULLOCK: Well, I would say that it's worth nuancing both those premises. The first one, the popularity, the president, we're about to celebrate - or mark, more likely - the first year of his second and unconstitutional presidential term. And at the end of his first term, a public opinion poll said that 80% of Salvadorans support the job approval of the president, while 83% say that they would be afraid to express an opinion that wasn't aligned with the president or his party. So you have a population that says they support the president, but they would be afraid to tell you if they didn't. And more recently, his popularity has dropped to 50%. And I think also our position as a human rights organization is that mass and systematic human rights violations, like the ones that we've investigated, are not justified by an outcome.
SIMON: We contacted the State Department for any comment on the case, and they referred us to the Salvadoran government. What do you believe the effect of the Trump administration not speaking out about this might be?
BULLOCK: Well, I think that there's two issues in which the diplomatic community has been largely silent on in the last few days, and one is Ruth's case. And the second is the foreign agents law itself, which when it was first presented in El Salvador in 2021, was kind of a red line for the diplomatic community, and the United States led an effort to convince President Bukele not to move forward with it. But in this instance, there's been silence. So it does seem like the United States and El Salvador is withdrawing from its traditional - or at least its role recently - in defending democratic norms, supporting democratic advocates and human rights defenders and journalists.
SIMON: I have to ask - are you concerned about your own safety, the safety of people you work with?
BULLOCK: We all are. We've had to extract a couple of our colleagues from the country, and it doesn't seem likely that it will be very viable in the near future for human rights organizations to continue operating. And the same is true, I think, for independent journalists. The advent of this foreign agent law, when it goes into effect, will turn the country into an environment more similar to Nicaragua or Russia than anything that you could call, like, a hybrid democracy.
SIMON: So you believe it might be impossible for you to continue your work or - and other human rights organizations might have to make the same choice?
BULLOCK: Yeah, that's right. The president of the assembly himself said that the law, don't worry, it won't be applied to his friends. It's a law that's not a regulatory framework. It's a framework for persecution.
SIMON: Noah Bullock from the human rights organization Cristosal in San Salvador. Thanks very much for being with us.
BULLOCK: Thank you, Scott. My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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