On the Detention of Lawyer and Human Rights Defender Ruth López Alfaro in El Salvador

The New York City Bar Association has released a statement expressing its deep concern over the detention of Ruth Eleonora López Alfaro, a renowned Salvadoran attorney who heads the Anti-Corruption and Justice team at Cristosal and has dedicated her work to promoting democracy and exposing human rights violations by the government of El Salvador. 

On the night of May 18, López Alfaro was detained by government actors at her private residence. According to the Salvadoran Attorney General’s Office via X (formerly Twitter), she faces embezzlement charges related to her advisory role with former official Eugenio Chicas. For over 40 hours, the government failed to disclose her location to her family members and lawyers. 

The detention of López Alfaro must be viewed in the broader context of El Salvador’s pattern of political persecution — a context marked by growing authoritarianism, weakening of institutional safeguards, and the instrumentalization of the justice system to silence dissent. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have previously expressed concern over the use of the Salvadoran criminal justice system as a tool for political persecution, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has expressed concerns over complaints of attacks against women human rights defenders. 

The detention of a human rights lawyer due to her legal work constitutes a violation of international standards concerning the free and independent exercise of the legal profession, as enshrined in the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, as well as of the rights to personal liberty, freedom of expression, and due process under the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. Additionally, the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders recognizes the right of every individual, alone or with others, “to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels” (Article 1). 

The New York City Bar Association urges the Salvadoran government to “immediately cease the criminalization of independent legal professionals, release López Alfaro…and adopt effective guarantees for the safe and free exercise of legal defense in the country.” It also urges the IACHR to closely monitor this case and neighboring governments to “press for the immediate release of López Alfaro and the cessation of reprisals against civil society actors.”

Read the full statement in English here. 
Lea el comunicado completo en español aquí. 

About the Association
The mission of the New York City Bar Association, which was founded in 1870 and has over 20,000 members, is to equip and mobilize a diverse legal profession to practice with excellence, promote reform of the law, and uphold the rule of law and access to justice in support of a fair society and the public interest in our community, our nation, and throughout the world. www.nycbar.org