Salvadoran government orders editor of El Faro newspaper to leave the country, says editor

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The director of the Salvadoran newspaper El Faro, Carlos Dada, denounced on Wednesday that government agents of the Central American country notified the newspaper editor, Mexican journalist Daniel Lizárraga, that he must leave the country.

Dada said that on Tuesday, “agents of the Salvadoran government” showed up at Lizárraga’s home to “notify him that he has five days to leave El Salvador and that his work permit and temporary residency has been denied because he has not been able to prove that he is a journalist”.

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“We consider it, without a doubt, one more form of harassment and attack against us (El Faro), and one more attempt to weaken us,” denounced Dada in an online transmission with Casa América Catalunya, which awarded the media outlet the Antoni Traveria Award for Freedom of Expression.

Dada added that he is very concerned about the country because “it is running out of journalism, it is also running out of democracy” and described the decision as to the “last chapter of this escalation” of “harassment”.

The government of President Nayib Bukele has not made any statements regarding Dada’s denunciation.

Lizárraga joined El Faro as editor last January and, in the past, was a member of the investigative team of Aristegui Noticias and worked for Reforma, El Universal, and Revista Proceso.

In mid-April, El Faro denounced in an editorial that the Salvadoran government allegedly “fabricated another case” against it after an audit. The Ministry of Finance accused the investigative media of tax evasion.

At the beginning of March, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of El Salvador admitted an injunction against the Treasury for allegedly using an audit to obtain information on the “editorial line, journalistic methodology, sources and ongoing investigations” of El Salvador Faro.