Rodrigo Sura/EPA-EFE via Creative Commons
Mexican journalist Daniel Lizárraga, an editor of the Salvadoran digital news publication El Faro, prepares to board a plane after being expelled from El Salvador for his coverage of human rights violations.
More than a week after the government of El Salvador declared a thirty-day state of emergency to fight “a war against gangs,” the country took another dire step in attacking the rights of the press.
In the course of just three hours, the Salvadoran legislative branch approved a revision to the legal code to make it illegal to “reproduce and transmit messages from or presumably from gangs that could generate uneasiness or panic in the population.” Violators face up to fifteen years in prison.
The move has caused concern among Salvadoran journalists. On April 7, the renowned independent Salvadoran media outlet El Faro went dark in protest of the measures.
“Salvadoran authorities are using the country’s state of emergency to outlaw critical investigative journalism while harassment of journalists in the country intensifies.”
“The reforms to the penal code approved this week by the Bukele-controlled Legislative Assembly are a gag order on the press and freedom of expression, but above all else, an assault on the public’s right to be informed. In a democracy, those in power do not decide what is published or not,” the El Faro editorial board wrote in a statement. “But this new law, passed by the legislature at the command of President Nayib Bukele, comes when democratic order has already been dismantled in El Salvador and the regime goes to every length to hide its corruption and its negotiations with criminal groups.”
It called the changes “an assault on the public’s right to be informed.”
The legislation, meant to silence the voices most critical of the Bukele administration, has been met by condemnation from international human rights and press freedom organizations, which Bukele has repeatedly attacked and tried to tamp down, along with the voices of experts researching gang activity.
On April 11, El Salvador’s young president took to Twitter to attack and discredit anthropologist and journalist Juan Martínez d’Aubuisson, who is widely known for his research and reporting on gangs, referring to him as “garbage.”
“Salvadoran authorities are using the country’s state of emergency to outlaw critical investigative journalism while harassment of journalists in the country intensifies,” Carlos Martinez de la Serna, the program director with the Committee to Protect Journalists, tells The Progressive. “These measures happen within a press freedom crisis already unfolding in the country and the region.”
Throughout Latin America, attacks on the press are on the rise as part of a larger backslide of democratic institutions. Just as the press became the enemy during the Trump Administration, journalists in the region face verbal attacks from heads of state, criminal charges, and sometimes death for doing their work.
“Deadly violence remains a major form of censorship in countries like Mexico and Colombia,” Martinez de la Serna says. “The use of criminal investigations and repressive laws remains an effective tactic to sideline and silence outspoken journalists.” He adds, “Just the threat of jail time is enough to send a chilling message, as it is happening now in El Salvador.”
Journalists in Guatemala also risk facing criminal charges or even being killed for their reporting. An arrest warrant has been issued for Indigneous journalist Carlos Choc with the independent media outlet Prensa Comunitaria, for his coverage of protests and the documentation of human rights violations around the Fénix Project mine in eastern Guatemala. Another journalist, Juan Luis Font who works with El Periódico, was forced to flee the country after being criminally charged for his coverage.
Investigative journalists Marvin Del Cid and Sonny Figueroa with the website VoxPopuli have faced regular harassment from authorities for their investigations. Figueroa was arbitrarily detained by authorities in September 2020 and later released. The two police officers who arrested him now face criminal prosecution for abuse of authority.
For others, the situation is more dire. In March 2022, Guatamalan journalist Orlando Villanueva, who covered local politics and corruption in Izabal, was murdered in eastern Guatemala. According to the UNESCO Observatory of killed journalists, there have been at least twenty-two journalists murdered across the country since 2007.
On top of this, the administration of President Alejandro Giammattei has regularly restricted journalists’ access to information, especially in regard to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Since taking office a year ago, Giammattei’s government has demonstrated a hostile attitude toward the media, including by selectively limiting their access to important public health information,” José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said in a press statement. “A free press and timely information accessible to all are essential to properly handling the pandemic.”
The Ortega administration in Nicaragua has also taken steps to limit the freedom of the press, using criminal prosecution of journalists for their critical reporting. At least 104 attacks on the media have occurred in 2022, with six journalists fleeing the country.
Mexico has seen nine journalists killed since the beginning of 2022, already nearing the levels of those killed the previous year. Violence against the press has skyrocketed during the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
In Haiti, too, journalists face violence for carrying out their work. In 2022, at least three journalists were killed on the Caribbean island.
These rollbacks on press freedom are worrying, and are likely to worsen in the future.
A 2021 report from UNESCO found that, while some regions have seen a decrease in the number of journalists murdered, the number increased in Latin America between 2016 and 2020.
“Without urgent action by governments, civil society, and private companies,” the report concludes, “trustworthy journalism will remain under threat, and information as a public good severely undernourished.”