El Salvador's top human rights group flees President Bukele's ongoing crackdown on dissent

MEXICO CITY (AP) — El Salvador's top human rights organization, Cristosal, announced Thursday it is leaving the country because of mounting harassment and legal threats by the government of President Nayib Bukele.

The organization has been one of the most visible critics of Bukele, documenting abuses in the strongman’s war on the country’s gangs and the detention of hundreds of Venezuelan deportees in an agreement with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Bukele’s government has long targeted opponents, but Cristosal Executive Director Noah Bullock said things reached a tipping point in recent months as Bukele has grown empowered by his alliance with Trump.

“The clear targeting of our organization has made us choose between exile or prison," Bullock said in an interview with the Associated Press. “The Bukele administration has unleashed a wave of repression over the past few months ... There's been an exodus of civil society leaders, professionals and even businessmen.”

El Salvador 's government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cristosal has been working in El Salvador since 2000, when it was founded by Evangelical bishops in order to address human rights and democratic concerns following the country’s brutal civil war.

On Thursday, the human rights organization announced that it packed up its offices and moved 20 employees from the Central American nation to neighboring Guatemala and Honduras. Cristosal quietly got staff and their families out before publicly announcing they were leaving out of fear that they could be targeted by the Bukele government.

The decision came after its top anti-corruption lawyer Ruth López was jailed in June on enrichment charges, which the organization denies.

Cristosal's legal team has supported hundreds of cases alleging the government arbitrarily detained innocent people in its crackdown on gangs, and has unlawfully detained Venezuelans deported from the U.S. López headed many of those investigations. In a court appearance in June, she appeared shackled and escorted by police.

“They’re not going to silence me, I want a public trial,” she shouted. “I’m a political prisoner.”

For years, the organization said staff have been followed around by police officers, had their phones tapped by spyware like Pegasus, and been subject to legal attacks and defamation campaigns.

But López's court appearance was the moment that Bullock said he knew they would have to leave the country.

At the same time, the government has arrested more critics, while others have quietly fled the country. In late May, El Salvador’s Congress passed a “foreign agents” law, championed by the populist president. It resembles legislation implemented by governments in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Russia, Belarus and China to silence and criminalize dissent by exerting pressure on organizations that rely on overseas funding.

Bullock said the the law would make it easier for the government to criminalize staff and cripple the organization economically.

Cristosal's flight from the country marks another blow to checks and balances in a country where Bukele has virtually consolidated control of the government. Bullock said no longer being able to work in the country will make it significantly harder for the organization to continue their ongoing legal work, particularly supporting those detained with little access to due process.

Police and soldiers stop to ask neighbors about an empty home as they patrol the San Bartolo neighborhood in El Salvador, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

A police officer checks people's IDs in the San Bartolo neighborhood as police and soldiers patrol in El Salvador, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

Noah Bullock, director of the human rights organization Cristosal, waits to speak at a press conference in Guatemala City, Thursday, July 17, 2025, to announce that Cristosal is suspending their activities in El Salvador. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Abraham Abrego, with the human rights organization Cristosal, leaves after giving a press conference in Guatemala City, Thursday, July 17, 2025, to announce that Cristosal is suspending their activities in El Salvador. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Noah Bullock, director of the human rights organization Cristosal, center, gives a press conference in Guatemala City, Thursday, July 17, 2025, to announce that Cristosal is suspending their activities in El Salvador. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday fired off another warning to the government of Cuba as the close ally of Venezuela braces for potential widespread unrest after Nicolás Maduro was deposed as Venezuela's leader.

Cuba, a major beneficiary of Venezuelan oil, has now been cut off from those shipments as U.S. forces continue to seize tankers in an effort to control the production, refining and global distribution of the country's oil products.

Trump said on social media that Cuba long lived off Venezuelan oil and money and had offered security in return, “BUT NOT ANYMORE!”

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA - ZERO!” Trump said in the post as he spent the weekend at his home in southern Florida. “I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not explain what kind of deal.

The Cuban government said 32 of its military personnel were killed during the American operation last weekend that captured Maduro. The personnel from Cuba’s two main security agencies were in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, as part of an agreement between Cuba and Venezuela.

“Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years,” Trump said Sunday. “Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will.”

Trump also responded to another account’s social media post predicting that his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will be president of Cuba: “Sounds good to me!” Trump said.

Trump and top administration officials have taken an increasingly aggressive tone toward Cuba, which had been kept economically afloat by Venezuela. Long before Maduro's capture, severe blackouts were sidelining life in Cuba, where people endured long lines at gas stations and supermarkets amid the island’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Trump has said previously that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, would slide further with the ouster of Maduro.

“It’s going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.”

A person watches the oil tanker Ocean Mariner, Monrovia, arrive to the bay in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

President Donald Trump attends a meeting with oil executives in the East Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)