Bukele Ushers In a New Era of Political Prisoners in El Salvador
Between 2021 and 2023, there were 11 political prisoners in El Salvador, according to U.S. government records. A committee of relatives of persecuted and imprisoned Salvadorans registered 28 people as political prisoners as of March 2025. A closer look reveals illegal imprisonments that violate court orders for release; deaths of prisoners who have not been tried; politically motivated arrests; and prosecutors and judges loyal to Nayib Bukele’s political project. Political prisoners, that thing of the past, have returned to El Salvador.
Sunday, June 15th, 2025
Gabriel Labrador
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Bukele has repeated it on several occasions: that, among the 130,000 detainees who have turned the country into the place with the highest prison population rate in the world (one in every 57 Salvadorans is in prison), not a single person has been arrested for their ideas, for expressing them in public, for demonstrating, or for disagreeing with the government.
Bukele even said so at the United Nations in September 2024: “In El Salvador, we do not imprison our opposition, we do not censor opinions, we do not confiscate the property of those who think differently, we do not arrest people for expressing their ideas.”
Bukele has even repeated this to attack national and international organizations, and even foreign governments, when their reports on El Salvador indicate a rapid drift toward authoritarianism. This has been particularly true since 2021. As he took office for his unconstitutional second term in 2024 at the National Palace, in an ornate black-and-gold suit with military overtones, Bukele swore: “El Salvador has left behind its past, which we vowed never to return to. In the new El Salvador, there is room for everyone.”
His own prisons contradict him.
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It usually starts with criticism of the government. Next comes surveillance on the streets and at demonstrations. The police create profiles of people of interest, labeling them as supporters of opposition parties and identifying their families. Days or months later, the intimidation begins. Agents knock on doors —sometimes dressed in civilian clothes, sometimes in cars with private license plates— and ask harmless questions: “How do you get to such-and-such street?” “We want to know if anyone in this neighborhood needs help with any problems they may have.” “We're looking for the owner of a car that caused a traffic accident.”
Other times they get straight to the point. They say they need so-and-so to come out of the house, that they need to ask them some questions. They tell the family that no-one should worry, that the person will be back soon. Other times, simply living in an area once dominated by gangs is enough to facilitate arbitrary detention. “Ver, oír y callar” — “See, Hear, and Shut Up” is the title of a report by human rights organization Cristosal on the contagion of fear in El Salvador. Eleven percent of the organizations interviewed in the study reported the arbitrary detention of a member or relative.
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