Over 50 civil-society groups together with international human rights organisations have sounded the alarm about a new ‘foreign agents law’ proposed by the Nuevas Ideas (NI) government led by President Nayib Bukele. The Bukele administration maintains that the bill is necessary to prevent foreign interference in domestic affairs. However, civil-society groups, already on the alert over President Bukele’s perceived authoritarian tendencies, warn that it could be used to quash dissent. They invoke parallels with Nicaragua where the government led by President Daniel Ortega passed a similar law last year which his detractors maintain was used to repress the opposition and led to the shuttering of a string of NGOs ahead of the recent general election, which was widely slammed as a sham.
The initiative was presented on 9 November by Interior Minister Juan Carlos Bidegain before the 84-member unicameral legislature, in which the NI has a two-thirds majority. Likening it to the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara), Bidegain said that the bill, which contemplates the creation of a foreign agents’ registry attached to the interior ministry, seeks to establish a legal framework which “would make transparent international donations to different organisations”. The bill also establishes a 40% tax on foreign donations to such organisations. Some sectors are exempt, such as businesses with “strictly commercial” aims, diplomatic missions, and humanitarian, religious, and academic activities (among others). However, those implicitly included would be organisations working on anti-corruption, transparency, human rights, and rule of law, many of which have been critical of Bukele. Also drawing concern, the bill stipulates that those registered as “foreign agents” are barred from carrying out “political activities” that aim to alter “public order” or that “endanger or threaten national security or the social and political stability of the country”.
The initiative has already prompted an outcry both domestically and abroad, from groups like US-based NGO Human Rights Watch and press watchdogs like the Inter American Press Association as well as from United Nations Special Rapporteurs Mary Lawlor (Human Rights Defenders) and Clément Voule (Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association). Xenia Hernández, the executive director of civil-society group Fundación Democracia, Transparencia y Justicia (DTJ), told national daily El Diario de Hoy that this initiative “mirrors what Ortega has done”, while executive director of local civil society group Acción Ciudadana, Eduardo Escobar, told the same source that these laws have served in other countries to “suffocate” NGOs.
The unveiling of the initiative came days after President Bukele accused the US government, which has increasingly made known its discontent with his administration over democracy-related issues [WR-21-21], of financing the political opposition. This followed the 4 November announcement by administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, of a five-year US$300m initiative to “empower local organisations” in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. According to Power, the initiative seeks to address the drivers of irregular migration to the US – in line with US President Joe Biden’s plan for Central America. President Bukele tweeted in response “what would the US government say if we financed its political opposition…because this is what these NGOs do and everyone knows it”.
Foreign agents law
In a statement dated 12 November urging El Salvador to shelve the proposed foreign agents law, HRW notes that it has documented that other countries, such as Russia and Nicaragua, have used similar “foreign agents” laws to silence civil society. It highlights that the European Parliament has condemned Russia’s law – which is the subject of multiple challenges before the European Court of Human Rights – as a tool to stifle dissent, and the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights has made clear that it violates international norms.