(CNN Spanish) – The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) warned this Friday in a statement about what they consider to be the “worsening of freedoms of expression and the press” in El Salvador. , after carrying out a joint mission in the Central American country from September 9 to 11.
The organizations consider that the conditions for journalists’ work have worsened with the implementation of the state of emergency that has been in force since March 2022, in response to the Government of President Nayib Bukele to an uptick in violence that occurred on a single day in March 2022. That year left 62 homicides.
The emergency regime, to which the Bukele government attributes a historic reduction in homicides and the arrest of nearly 82,000 people according to official figures, limits constitutional guarantees and allows, among other things, the intervention of telecommunications without the authorization of a judge, as well as arrests without a court order and extends provisional detention from 72 hours to 15 days. This “creates a climate of intimidation and self-censorship among those who practice journalism,” the report maintains.
To prepare this report, the president of the IAPA, Roberto Rock, and the coordinator of CPJ’s Latin America program, Cristina Zahar, met with representatives of the media, journalists’ associations, academia, and non-profit organizations. profit organization with a focus on human rights, members of the diplomatic corps and with the presidential commissioner of Human Rights, Andrés Guzmán.
According to the report, the journalists consulted for the preparation of the report agree that the Bukele government restricts access to public information, and point out that this limits “transparency on critical issues such as the situation in prisons and crime statistics in the context of the state of exception.”
They add that “some colleagues decided to leave the profession for fear of reprisals” and that others had been forced to leave the country “temporarily or permanently, due to government persecution.”
The government reacted through Commissioner Guzmán, who told CNN that he “respects” the organizations’ observations, but highlighted that since Bukele assumed the presidency “not a single case of journalists being murdered, detained or situations involving the destruction of journalistic work equipment, such as cameras, even during the emergency regime.”
Guzmán maintained that the government is open to a “frank dialogue” with national and international organizations that allows addressing any concerns to build an environment in which the press can fulfill its role with respect for the truth.
