'El Faro' transfers its legal and administrative structure to Costa Rica in the face of harassment from the Government of Nayib Bukele

File image of the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, during a conference in San Salvador. JOSE CABEZAS (Reuters)

The Salvadoran digital newspaper

has announced the transfer of its administrative and legal structure to Costa Rica.

After 25 years, since April 1, the outlet is operated by the Periodical Foundation, based in San José, the capital.

The newsroom will continue to do journalism in El Salvador, where it has investigated multiple corruption scandals in political power and the judiciary and in 2021 uncovered the negotiations between the Nayib Bukele government and the gangs.

The decision is due, according to a statement published on Thursday, to "the lack of conditions to continue operating in El Salvador."

The reporters and members of El Faro are harassed by the current Administration.

At least 22 employees were intervened with Pegasus, the spy software of the Israeli company NSO Group.

“We have been the object of delegitimization and defamation campaigns originating in the Presidential House;

we have faced physical surveillance and threats;

[...] harassment of advertisers and defamation of officials and deputies of the official party.

But, above all, we have faced multiple audits by the Ministry of Finance, with fabricated accusations to which we continue to respond and appeal in all the corresponding administrative and judicial instances, despite knowing that in El Salvador there is no longer a division of powers;

the president even used a national radio and television network to falsely accuse us of money laundering."

This onslaught is also taking place in a general context that is especially hostile to the control of power.

“The dismantling of our democracy, the lack of controls on the exercise of power by a small group, the attacks on press freedom and the closure of all transparency and accountability mechanisms in El Salvador seriously threaten the citizen's right to be informed. , beyond the large public resources allocated today to disseminate propaganda and false news," the statement said.

In April 2022, for example, the Legislative Assembly, dominated by the ruling party, approved a law that provides for prison sentences against those who publish information related to gangs.

Bukele decreed an emergency regime a year ago with which he redoubled his war against the Mara Salvatrucha and the Barrio-18, the two main criminal organizations in El Salvador.

Mass arrests took place.

If the president managed to corner the gangs, he did so at the cost of a sustained deterioration of human rights and democratic guarantees, according to organizations such as Human Rights Watch.

“The criminalization of journalism is, unfortunately, increasingly used by the governments of the region, parallel to the accumulation of power and the weakening of democratic institutions and civil movements.

The autocrats do not tolerate other narratives”, recalls the newsroom of

in reference to Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, today the most flagrant case.

However, journalists will continue to do their job.

“We will not stop reporting on the country that is at the center of our coverage.

Our journalism, then, is not going anywhere.

The move is precisely to continue doing so independently and critically, less vulnerable to the arbitrariness of the regime.

We are leaving to stay”, they say.

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