Tim Muth
@timmuth.bsky.social
Civil rights lawyer who has written for 22 years about El Salvador at El Salvador Perspectives. New articles come out on Substack. Never miss one by subscribing. timmuth.substack.com
New government in Colombia wants to prioritize their relationship with El Salvador and Bukele. www.lasillavacia.com/en-vivo/abel...
Abelardo prioriza su relación comercial con Bukele en El Salvador
El vicepresidente electo habló con la ministra de Economía salvadoreña. El encuentro dio cuenta de las afinidades entre el gobierno entrante y Bukele.
lasillavacia.com
Deceptive recruiters lure former soldiers and police from El Salvador. They are promised security jobs away from the front lines, but then end up as cannon fodder in places like Ukraine, Sudan and the DRC. timmuth.substack.com/p/salvadoran...
Salvadorans fighting and dying in global conflict zones
Deceptive recruiting has led hundreds of ex-soldiers and police to sign up for non-combat security jobs, only to find themselves on the front-line.
timmuth.substack.com
This week's ESP covers Bukele's unannounced trip to Washington, the end of a mass gang trial, and other news from El Salvador. Bukele’s trip and subsequent silence is a strong signal that TPS for 170,000 Salvadorans in the US will expire on September 9. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
Bukele trip to Washington could signal end of TPS
The Salvadoran leader who loves publicity, avoided the spotlight on this meeting with Trump less than a week before Salvadorans with TPS lose work authorization.
open.substack.com
Something strange here. Bukele is meeting with Trump today in DC, but there is almost no mention in Salvadoran press, and no mention of it on the Salvadoran government Twitter channels. Suggests a rapid trip by Bukele -- perhaps TPS for El Salvador is on the chopping block? voz.us/en/politics/...
Trump welcomes Bukele to the White House after his announcement that he will seek a third term
The meeting comes days after the Salvadoran president was nominated as the Nuevas Ideas candidate for the 2027 elections, amid a context marked by the constitutional amendment that allowed for indefin...
voz.us
A rare event. Normally the Bukele regime spits at IACHR rulings. english.elpais.com/internationa...
IACHR opens a crack in Bukele’s jails with a visit to political prisoner Ruth López
The lawyer receives her sister after over 440 days in detention under judicial limbo
english.elpais.com
El Salvador heads toward national elections in February 2027 after election law changes which make it even harder for opposition parties to get a foothold in the country controlled by Nayib Bukele and his Nuevas Ideas party. The latest on El Salvador Perspectives: open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
Electoral season commences with structural hurdles for opposition parties in El Salvador
Nuevas Ideas installed a series of changes to solidify Nayib Bukele and the party's hold on power, while opposition parties are tiny and fragmented.
open.substack.com
He was a Salvadoran youth deported by the Trump administration along with 230 Venezuelans to the CECOT prison. The Venezuelans are free. The Salvadoran government has lost Irvin Quintanilla. beta.elfaro.net/el-salvador/...
Irvin Quintanilla desapareció en las cárceles de El Salvador
Están por cumplirse 16 meses desde que el salvadoreño Irvin Quintanilla, de 25 años, fue deportado junto con 252 venezolanos desde Estados Unidos al CECOT en El Salvador. El Estado admitió que estaba ...
beta.elfaro.net
🎙️ Nayib Bukele registers to run for a third term in El Salvador’s 2027 election after scrapping term limits. If he achieves his goal, he’s set to stay in power until 2033. beta.elfaro.net/en/elfaro-au...
Podcast: Bukele Sets Stage for Third Term in El Salvador
In El Salvador, Bukele registers to run for a third term in 2027 after scrapping term limits. In Guatemala, Trump’s nominee for ambassador steps down amid turmoil over U.S. policy. Trump’s threat to…
beta.elfaro.net
In this week’s post, I look at the AI initiatives which Nayib Bukele has announced in El Salvador. Bitcoin did not transform the country, but he is hoping that offering tech companies a regulation free landscape will induce them to set up shop in the country. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/....
AI in El Salvador
July 5, 2026
open.substack.com
An overview of the mass trial phase occurring now during El Salvador's State of Exception. youtu.be/VqAcgKRRIGQ?...
The InSight Take: El Salvador’s Mass Trials Put Bukele’s Gang Crackdown on Display
YouTube video by InSight Crime
youtu.be
In this week’s El Salvador Perspectives, I look at the relationship between China and El Salvador under Nayib Bukele. China’s name appears on more high-profile projects, donated to the country, while Bukele remains a Trump ally in the region. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
Is China’s gift giving working?
Bukele is a Trump ally, but China is playing the long game
open.substack.com
Despite a blackout from the Salvadoran government about what happens in its prisons (except for the media events for influencers and friendly journalists at CECOT), there are horrors being shared by survivors and families of inmates. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
Inside El Salvador’s prisons
June 21, 2026
open.substack.com
Salvadoran mercenaries died fighting in Sudan according to source cited by El País. english.elpais.com/internationa...
Latin American mercenaries fight with Sudan’s paramilitaries amid civil war
The first deployment of Colombians to the country, coordinated by the UAE, was in 2024, but the network has expanded and now includes contractors from countries such as El Salvador
english.elpais.com
A hospital, a storm, a repressive law and mass trials -- some recent news items from El Salvador. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
Random notes
A hospital, a storm, a repressive law, and mass trials
open.substack.com
Mexico has already scored the first goal in this year's World Cup. The ACLU has put up this site with information for players and fans coming to Trump's America. www.aclu.org/campaigns-in...
The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup: Know Your Rights, Know Your Risks | American Civil Liberties Union
If you’re attending the 2026 World Cup in areas impacted by the Trump administration’s militarized immigration crackdown. Know your rights — and your risks — before you go.
aclu.org
Environmental concerns do not slow down development projects in today’s El Salvador. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
Trees give way to modernization
A new convention center in "El Espino"
open.substack.com
The divinising of money and the idolatry of power create false idols which take the place of the true God —St Oscar Romero, Trinity Sunday 1978 #StOscarRomero
Bertha María Deleón was once Bukele's lawyer, then she became his critic, which resulted in fleeing into exile in Mexico, where today she advocates with others forced into exile by the regime. focostv.com/la-promesa-q...
Organizarnos desde el exilio, ¿para qué? - FOCOS
Bertha María Deleón salió forzada de El Salvador en 2021. Se prometió dejar el activismo. Cuatro años después, asegura que esa promesa era imposible —y reconoce por qué es importante que así sea.
focostv.com
In recent years apartment towers are springing up in El Salvador, funded by a surge of money from abroad. Meanwhile, the country has an enormous deficit of affordable dignified housing for the majority of Salvadorans. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
A Building Boom and a Housing Deficit
High end apartment towers doing little for majority of Salvadorans with substandard housing
open.substack.com
“The time I find hardest of all is at night, when the house falls still, and there is nothing left to do and no one left to call. This was our time, when we talked without haste, when we discussed anything and everything” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/25/o...
Opinion | My Wife Disappeared Into El Salvador’s Prison System. When Will She Come Home?
nytimes.com
My post at El Salvador Perspectives on the case of Ruth López and other political prisoners in El Salvador. #FreeRuth timmuth.substack.com/p/free-ruth?...
Free Ruth
One year has passed since human rights lawyer Ruth López was detained and then imprisoned by the Salvadoran government.
timmuth.substack.com
In his new book El Faro’s Oscar Martínez encourages his readers to look behind the photo ops, the social media influencers, and the self-promotion to see the naked exercise of power by Nayib Bukele. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
The Dictator Undressed
Óscar Martínez of El Faro profiles Nayib Bukele
open.substack.com
The case of Ruth López reflects that pattern: today she is a political prisoner. We demand her immediate freedom and a public trial with guarantees. #LibertadParaRuth #JuicioPúblicoParaRuth
Ruth Lopez, a lawyer in El Salvador and anti-corruption investigator with a human rights NGO who was named one of BBC’s 100 most inspiring women, has been imprisoned by the Bukele government for a year, under a suspension of civil liberties supposedly targeting gangs
Bukele has driven El Faro into exile, infected their phones with spyware, frozen their assets, but still their journalists keep holding the Salvadoran autocracy to account. timmuth.substack.com/p/bukeles-on...
Bukele's ongoing war with El Faro
Freezing assets is latest act in years of harassment of award-winning journalism site
timmuth.substack.com
The Salvadoran government misleadingly claims that it is clearing the records of thousands of innocent people detained by mistake. timmuth.substack.com/p/8000-out-o...
8000 out of prison, but not free
The Salvadoran government misleadingly claims that it is clearing the records of thousands of innocent people detained by mistake.
timmuth.substack.com
In its latest attack on the press, the Bukele regime has frozen the personal assets of El Faro shareholders. The prize winning investigative journalism site had already been forced into exile and had moved financial operations to Costa Rica. beta.elfaro.net/en/opinion-e...
Bukele Freezes Personal Assets of El Faro Shareholders
The Bukele regime in El Salvador has crossed yet another red line in its attacks on El Faro, freezing personal assets of shareholders. We will keep practicing journalism with the certainty that, as lo...
beta.elfaro.net
The high profile trial of MS-13 gang leaders in El Salvador is supposed to show how gang leadership in prisons directed homicides outside prison. But there will not be individualized proof of all those crimes. english.elpais.com/internationa...
Bukele invokes the Nuremberg trials to justify mass trials against gang leaders accused of 29,000 homicides
Human rights defenders criticize the process, calling it a judicial ‘shortcut’ that seeks convictions instead of establishing individual accountability
english.elpais.com
