El Salvador’s National Civil Police have arrested Ruth Eleonora López, a renowned human rights and anti-corruption attorney who has become one of the nation’s most prominent critics of President Nayib Bukele’s regime.
According to representatives from Cristosal, the human rights group where López serves as Chief Legal Officer for Anti-Corruption; members of López’s family; and reports in Salvadoran media, López was taken from her home late Sunday night. In the time since her arrest, she has reportedly been refused access to her attorneys, and has not been able to contact members of her family. The arrest also came on the heels of a particularly tumultuous week for the Bukele government, which is facing growing public backlash amid a spate of repressive actions against civil society and Salvadorans alike.
On Monday, Amnesty International and a coalition of U.S. and international human rights groups condemned the arrest, and called on Salvadoran authorities to immediately release Ruth López,” and “guarantee her physical safety and due process rights.
“We also urge U.S. policymakers and the diplomatic community at large to urge President Bukele to cease all attacks against human rights defenders,” the group wrote.
Noah Bullock, head of Cristosal, told Rolling Stone on Monday that López had been arrested late on Sunday. Bullock’s account of the arrest was relayed to him by López’s partner, who was present as she was detained, but did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Rolling Stone. Bullock says police told López’ “that they had a complaint about her car having been in an accident, and that they wanted to verify the owner and things like that, and then Ruth needed to come out.”
Police “tricked” her into coming out of the house, Bullock says, “and then once she was there they took out a pretty simple order from the attorney general to arrest her.” Lopez, who was in pajama shorts, then requested to be allowed to change.
“She asked if she could put her pants on at least, and they wouldn’t let her go back into the house and forced her to put pants on on the street in front of all of her neighbors.” According to a video of the arrest obtained by El Diario de Hoy, López told officers to “have decency,” because one day the sort of impunity they enjoyed “will end.”
Within minutes of the arrest, the Salvadoran attorney general’s Office posted a tweet with a photo of López handcuffed between two officers, writing that she had been charged with embezzlement stemming from her time working in the office of Eugenio Chicas, a former magistrate and ex-president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of El Salvador, who has been incarcerated since February on similar charges. The attorney general wrote that López had “collaborated in the theft of funds from the state coffers.” Chicas — with López’s legal assistance — successfully sued Bukele in a 2017 defamation case.
López denied the charges during her arrest after an officer said he would “explain” her situation to her. “Here, the only reason for my arrest is that I’m a human rights defender and I work for an NGO that’s inconvenient for the government; that’s the only problem,” she says in the video. “There’s nothing to explain — about embezzlement, corruption — when I’m the one investigating corruption here.”
Upon learning of the arrest, Cristosal dispatched “a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, to go and present himself as her representative, verify where she is and that she’s in good condition,” Bullock says. “He arrived at that place, and they said that she wasn’t there, and the place looked desolate. It didn’t look like anybody was really there, and the police were really hostile with him.” Bullock adds that the attorney waited a while, before returning to the precinct, announcing himself as López’s representative and asking to see her, only to be told she was not there. López’s partner was later told he could deliver medication for López at another detention center, but has not had direct contact with her.
Cristosal has since denounced López’s arrest, and subsequent isolation from her attorneys and family, as a temporary forced disappearance. In a statement issued early Monday morning, the organization wrote that López is “likely the victim of a short-term enforced disappearance, which constitutes a serious human rights violation under international law.”
“The authorities’ refusal to disclose her location or to allow access to her legal representatives is a blatant violation of due process, the right to legal defense, and international standards of judicial protection,” the organization wrote, adding a demand that the Salvadoran government immediately disclose the location of her detention, grant her access to her legal representation, and give “effective guarantees for her physical, psychological, and legal integrity.”
López, who last year was named one of the BBC’s 100 most influential women, has a long history of exposing wrongdoing by the Bukele government and publicly defending the civil and humanitarian rights of those crushed under El Salvador’s regime of exemption. Last year López helped lead an investigation that determined that Bukele’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) mega-prison was polluting the water supply of local communities by illegally dumping sewage from the prison. In 2022, López, through Cristosal, led a complaint against the Bukele government for the alleged use of government funds to install spyware in the communication devices of journalists and human rights activists.
Just last month, López confronted police officers who attempted to interrupt a Cristosal press conference with Kerry Kennedy, the niece of former President John F. Kennedy, who traveled to the country to meet with clients unlawfully deported from the U.S. to CECOT. According to a statement from Cristosal about the encounter, two National Civil Police (PNC) officers entered the organization’s facilities during a press conference and began recording the organizations offices, as well as the vehicles of media, staff, and others present at the event. The officers claimed they had “come to verify a ‘supposed pro-Venezuelan demonstration and a press conference.’”
Bullock tells Rolling Stone that while Cristosal has become used to police presence at their events and harassment by law enforcement, López’s arrest comes during an acute increase in the government’s repressive attitude towards non profits and human rights organizations. “They haven’t been able to control the narrative, and now they’re cracking down,” Bullock says, noting that last week Bukele announced he would be implementing a hefty tax on foreign donations to nonprofits operating in El Salvador, many of whom are critical of the government’s autocratic policies.
In an April Rolling Stone interview on the conditions of El Salvador’s prisons, and the lack of due process and respect for human rights within the nation’s prison system, López warned that the checks and balances placed on the powers of functional democracies exist for the protection of the population. When they are eroded, “the population ends up suffering those consequences.”
With Lopez now in detention, one of the most critical voices in defense of Salvadoran civil society has been cut off from the world. “We’re hoping that they treat her fairly while she’s in prison,” Bullock says of López’s detention, “I think it’s probably unlikely.”
