Journalism association to leave El Salvador over government pressure

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SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s Journalists Association is moving its legal status out of the country in response to a foreign agents law passed earlier this year that was seen as a way to pressure critical voices in the Central American nation.

Founded in 1936, the association said Wednesday that to continue defending journalists’ rights and freedom of the press it would have to move to another country, which it did not name. The association announced plans in September to close its offices.

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

President Nayib Bukele has consolidated his grip on power since winning reelection in a landslide. He points to his success in fighting the country’s powerful gangs and high popularity.

The foreign agents law passed in May imposes a 30% tax on funds nongovernmental organizations receive from outside El Salvador and requires them to register as foreign agents. He has criticized nongovernmental organizations critical of his policies as sympathetic to the gangs.

Critics have said it is an attempt to silence critical voices by going after their international funding.

Several other prominent organizations, including the human rights group Cristosal, have moved outside El Salvador.

The Journalists Association said it has registered 43 Salvadoran journalists who left the country between March and June, noting that most had worked for independent online news outlets. The association said they had not returned to El Salvador because they feared arrest, as has occurred with some human rights advocates this year.