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Tim Muth

@timmuth.bsky.social
226 followers 184 following 441 posts

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

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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Who would be available to build those golden monuments? www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
newyorker.com
Why Trump Delayed Cancelling Legal Status for Salvadorans
The White House has quietly paused an order to end Temporary Protected Status for thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, a move that came after months of lobbying from the construction industry and...
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
From the ICE Flight Monitor
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
On every deportation flight to El Salvador, four or more men end up being sent into El Salvador's prisons, regardless of whether they have criminal convictions in the US or El Salvador. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
theatlantic.com
ICE Deportees Are Vanishing Into Salvadoran Prisons
The world moved on after Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but people continue to disappear.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Divided viewpoints in Trump administration led to the current non-extension, non-termination of TPS for El Salvador in an election year. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...
politico.com
White House pumped brakes on TPS termination for 200,000 Salvadorans
DHS was set to end temporary protected status for El Salvador before the White House stepped in.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Under State of Exception in Bukele’s El Salvador 93,000 were arrested, but advocates believe thousands are innocent. Now trials are beginning, but convictions are foreordained and sentences start at low end of 20 years for gang membership with no related crime. timmuth.substack.com/p/defense-at...
timmuth.substack.com
Defense attorneys condemn assembly line mass trials in El Salvador
93,000 persons captured during ongoing State of Exception face trials which produce decades long prison sentences, not guilt or innocence.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
El Salvador is also holding elections where everyone knows the result in advance. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/w...
nytimes.com
Why Autocrats Care What People Think (Gift Article)
Russia is staging an election that matters to almost no one — except President Vladimir V. Putin and his inner circle.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
He has never been charged with a crime. Trump deported him on infamous flights with Venezuelans to El Salvador and CECOT. Despite having no charges in El Salvador or US he languishes in Salvadoran prison system. beta.elfaro.net/en/el-salvad...
beta.elfaro.net
Man Deported from Texas Faces No Criminal Charges in El Salvador but Remains in Prison
The Bukele government said they imprisoned a man deported from Texas citing “sovereign cooperation.” They asked that an international order protecting his rights be withdrawn, despite their own admiss...
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The US government leaves 170,000 Salvadorans who have lived in the US for more than 25 years in limbo over whether they may face removal from the country where they have built lives. I summarize where this stands from US and Salvadoran perspectives. timmuth.substack.com/p/confusion-...
timmuth.substack.com
Confusion over Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador
The designation for El Salvador had an expiration date this past Wednesday. 170,000 are in limbo as the US says it will make an announcement “when appropriate.”
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
IMF said a condition of loan to El Salvador was that El Salvador would stop buying Bitcoin. But the government bought more than $100M of the volatile digital asset after that. IMF now says the government was not buying BTC, these were "just private donations." timmuth.substack.com/p/bitcoin-in...
timmuth.substack.com
Bitcoin in El Salvador after 5 years
Not used by Salvadorans in daily life, the government’s ongoing accumulation of the digital asset is now claimed by the IMF to be from “private donations”
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Ell Salvador's government issued a red alert this week for the high temperatures and lack of rain associated with this year's El Niño weather pattern and climate change. The rural poor are particularly at risk of hunger. timmuth.substack.com/p/a-red-aler...
timmuth.substack.com
A Red Alert for drought in El Salvador
The dry corridor of Central America suffers from the high temperature and lack of rain associated with the El Niño weather pattern.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The only surprise is that it did not happen even sooner. bitcoinworld.co.in/bitcoin-paym...
bitcoinworld.co.in
Bitcoin Payments Nearly Vanish At El Salvador’s ‘Bitcoin Beach’
Bitcoin payments fade at El Salvador's Bitcoin Beach as merchants report cash and cards dominate, reflecting HODL culture and structural economic shifts.
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TierraSapiens @tierrasapiens.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
🖲️ #Noticia #News "El miedo ahora es otro": cómo ha cambiado la vida en El Salvador en los 4 años de guerra de Bukele contra las maras Leer Más / Read More...
bbc.com
"El miedo ahora es otro": cómo ha cambiado la vida en El Salvador en los 4 años de guerra de Bukele contra las maras
Haz clic para acceder al contenido completo.
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Adam Isacson @adamisacson.com · 24/08/2026
The lethal, illegal boat strikes are back, after a 63-day hiatus following the Venezuela earthquakes. Strikes are back despite overwhelming evidence that they are murder; that many, likely most, of the dead are either super-low-level or uninvolved with drugs; and that cocaine supply is unaffected.
Press Release | Aug. 24, 2026
Lethal Kinetic Strike, August 23, 2026

"This operation is a clear and decisive reminder that SOUTHCOM is taking the fight directly to the cartels."

On August 23, under the commander of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Francis L. Donovan’s direction, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal kinetic strike on a low-profile vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific. Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel's active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed two narco-terrorists.

"When I ordered the establishment of Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, it was precisely for this purpose: to accelerate, synchronize, and execute lethal actions against these destabilizing narco-terrorist networks. We are committed to imposing total systemic friction on narco-terrorists -- disrupting their operations, dismantling their leadership, and eliminating cartel terror across the region." Gen. Donovan said.

“Let me be clear, we will not permit narco-terrorists to operate with impunity in the Western Hemisphere, nor will we allow their deadly poison to reach American communities. This operation is a powerful demonstration of our lethal precision, overwhelming capability, and absolute resolve to protect the U.S. homeland," Gen. Donovan said.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Nayib Bukele supports Trump's war on drug cartels in multiple ways, from sending ships to capture smugglers off coast of Ecuador, to allowing US to stage aircraft for boat strikes in the Caribbean or a CIA covert op. timmuth.substack.com/p/el-salvado...
timmuth.substack.com
El Salvador partners with US in a myriad of ways in the war the US has declared on cocaine shipments
Most of the ways are not something the Salvadoran government talks about openly.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
These interviews in May 2025 would lead to exile for El Faro journalists. timmuth.substack.com/p/the-el-far...
timmuth.substack.com
The El Faro interviews
Exile for El Faro journalists would follow publication of these reports
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
It’s not very conceivable that they will pose much of a challenge for Bukele, but there will be some opposition candidates when Salvadorans vote for president in February 2027. timmuth.substack.com/p/the-2027-f...
timmuth.substack.com
The 2027 FMLN and ARENA candidates for president in El Salvador
and Trump ramps up deportations of Salvadorans
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
New government in Colombia wants to prioritize their relationship with El Salvador and Bukele. www.lasillavacia.com/en-vivo/abel...
lasillavacia.com
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.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
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...
timmuth.substack.com
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.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
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/...
open.substack.com
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.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
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/...
voz.us
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...
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
A rare event. Normally the Bukele regime spits at IACHR rulings. english.elpais.com/internationa...
english.elpais.com
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
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
One party democracy in El Salvador. www.clickorlando.com/news/world/2...
clickorlando.com
El Salvador’s ruling party clears the way for Bukele’s 3rd term
El Salvador's ruling party has ratified President Nayib Bukele’s candidacy for the February presidential elections.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
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/...
open.substack.com
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.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
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/...
beta.elfaro.net
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 ...
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El Faro English @elfaroenglish.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
🎙️ 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...
beta.elfaro.net
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…
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
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/....
open.substack.com
AI in El Salvador
July 5, 2026
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
An overview of the mass trial phase occurring now during El Salvador's State of Exception. youtu.be/VqAcgKRRIGQ?...
youtu.be
The InSight Take: El Salvador’s Mass Trials Put Bukele’s Gang Crackdown on Display
YouTube video by InSight Crime
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
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/...
open.substack.com
Is China’s gift giving working?
Bukele is a Trump ally, but China is playing the long game
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
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/...
open.substack.com
Inside El Salvador’s prisons
June 21, 2026
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Salvadoran mercenaries died fighting in Sudan according to source cited by El País. english.elpais.com/internationa...
english.elpais.com
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
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
A hospital, a storm, a repressive law and mass trials -- some recent news items from El Salvador. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
open.substack.com
Random notes
A hospital, a storm, a repressive law, and mass trials
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
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...
aclu.org
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.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Environmental concerns do not slow down development projects in today’s El Salvador. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
open.substack.com
Trees give way to modernization
A new convention center in "El Espino"
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Archbishop Romero Trust @romerotrust.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
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
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
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...
focostv.com
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.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
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/...
open.substack.com
A Building Boom and a Housing Deficit
High end apartment towers doing little for majority of Salvadorans with substandard housing
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Alice Herman @aliceherman.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
“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...
nytimes.com
Opinion | My Wife Disappeared Into El Salvador’s Prison System. When Will She Come Home?
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
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?...
timmuth.substack.com
Free Ruth
One year has passed since human rights lawyer Ruth López was detained and then imprisoned by the Salvadoran government.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
www.wola.org/multimedia/o...
wola.org
One Year Later: The Political Imprisonment of Ruth López in El Salvador - WOLA
A year after the arrest of Salvadoran human rights lawyer and anti-corruption advocate Ruth Eleonora López Alfaro, WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast revisits her case and the broader situation unfold...
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
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/...
open.substack.com
The Dictator Undressed
Óscar Martínez of El Faro profiles Nayib Bukele
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Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center @kennedyhrc.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
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
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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
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
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
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...
timmuth.substack.com
Bukele's ongoing war with El Faro
Freezing assets is latest act in years of harassment of award-winning journalism site
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
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...
timmuth.substack.com
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.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
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...
beta.elfaro.net
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...
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
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...
english.elpais.com
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
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Oscar Martinez of El Faro describes perceptions of Bukele around the world created by a nonstop social media machine. The Influencer President — The Dial www.thedial.world/articles/new...
thedial.world
The Influencer President — The Dial
How Nayib Bukele entertained his way to dictatorship.
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
The Salvadoran congress controlled by Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party adopted 2 more constitutional amendments to assure the party remains solidly in control. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
open.substack.com
Changing the rules of the game (again)
Locking in power of Bukele and Nuevas Ideas for the long term
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
This profile article about Nayib Bukele is quite good, starting from his youth, through today when he presides over the country with the highest incarceration rate and highest presidential popularity level in the Americas. www.aljazeera.com/features/202...
aljazeera.com
Who Is Nayib Bukele? El Salvador’s ‘coolest dictator’
At 44, Bukele has built the world’s highest imprisonment rate and scrapped presidential term limits. What comes next?
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Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
A description from El Salvador describing the assembly line process used by the government to generate convictions of the 91,000 persons arrested during the ongoing State of Exception. open.substack.com/pub/timmuth/...
open.substack.com
Massive Gang Trials
The process for mass-production of convictions in El Salvador
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