The detained constitutional lawyer Enrique Anaya has recently described El Salvador President Nayib Bukele as a "dictator."
Enrique Anaya (center) has been an outspoken critic of President Nayib BukeleImage: X account of the Attorney General's Office of El Salvador/AFP
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A constitutional lawyer and fierce critic of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has been arrested on charges of "money laundering," the prosecutor's office said.
The lawyer, Enrique Anaya, has described Bukele as a "dictator." He was arrested at his home in the city of Santa Tecla on Saturday.
Human rights organizations have said the move aims to silence those who question the government.
Images of Anaya handcuffed alongside police officers were shared on social media by the office of El Salvador's attorney general. The authorities said Anaya will be referred to the courts for "money and asset laundering."
The arrest comes after the detention this year of fellow lawyer Ruth Lopez, head of an anti-corruption unit of human rights NGO Cristosal. Lopez stands accused of embezzling state funds when she worked for an electoral court a decade ago.
Bukele accuses his critics of leftist political activism and last week warned that "corrupt opposition members" are not untouchable.
Inside El Salvador's maximum security prison
Latin America's biggest prison is home to the most dangerous criminals in El Salvador, and is the centerpiece of the country's war on street gangs. But rights groups have slammed conditions at the facility as inhumane.
Image: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images
Crowded conditions
Gang members live crowded together at the maximum-security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), Latin America's biggest prison. The inmates sleep on steel bunks without mattresses, are only allowed to leave their cells for 30 minutes a day and are not allowed visitors. Some inmates are serving sentences of more than 200 years.
Image: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images
Centerpiece of the war on street gangs
CECOT is home to around 15,000 inmates, and it can hold up to 40,000. The high-security prison is a key part of President Nayib Bukele's program to combat serious gang crime in El Salvador. In 2022, Bukele declared a state of emergency to counter the extreme violence caused by criminal gangs. Since then, more than 80,000 Salvadoran have been arrested.
Image: Juan Carlos/dpa/picture alliance
Decades of violence
Gang tattoos adorn the bodies of most of the inmates. "MS" stands for Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, which, along with rival gang Barrio 18 have terrorized El Salvador since the late 1990s in their fight for drug and extortion rackets.
Image: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images
Crackdown against crime
Murders and gang crime have fallen drastically since Bukele's crackdown, a great success for many Salvadorans. However, human rights organizations have criticized the government's actions. The inmates are denied contact with family and lawyers, and they are often forced to confess, according to the human rights organizations. MS-13 and Barrio 18 members share cells, despite being mortal enemies.
Image: Juan Carlos/dpa/picture alliance
Life in prison
A member of the criminal gang Barrio 18 shows the tattoos on his head, arms and upper body. He has been sentenced to more than 200 years in prison. During a recent tour by the AFP news agency, prison director Belarmino Garcia referred to the inmates as "psychopaths who will be difficult to rehabilitate," adding: "That's why they are here, in a maximum security prison that they will never leave."
Image: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP
Watched 24 hours a day
Inmates are only allowed to leave their cells once a day for 30 minutes of exercise in the prison's large central corridor. Around 1,000 prison officers, 600 soldiers and 250 riot police guard the nearly two-year-old facility, watching inmates 24 hours a day with CCTV cameras.
Image: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP
'No way out'
Apart from their exercises, inmates leave their cells only when they have court hearings by video link. Speaking with media, a 41-year-old nicknamed "Sayco" told AFP he regretted his violent past. "We are in a maximum security prison where we know there is no way out," he said.
Image: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images
Thousands of innocent prisoners released
The government's approach has been celebrated by supporters as a model for success. However, arbitrary arrests are still common in El Salvador. In November, the president acknowledged that 8,000 innocent people were among those rounded up, and they have since been released from the prison. The Socorro Juridico Humanitario rights group estimates that almost a third of those detained are innocent.
Image: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP
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'Whoever does not kneel before the idol, gets imprisoned'
"I don't care if they call me a dictator. I'd rather be called a dictator than see Salvadorans killed in the streets," he said on Sunday.
Anaya responded on a television program Tuesday that Bukele had removed "the mask," adding "he is what he is."
"Here, whoever speaks, whoever criticizes, whoever does not kneel before the idol, gets imprisoned. Of course, I am afraid," Anaya said.
He said in his last X post on Friday that "the Bukelean dictatorship is increasingly questioned and confronted internationally," referencing criticism from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) regarding the arrest of Lopez's and other activists.
