On September 2, 2025, Rudy Joya and Ivania Cruz, Salvadoran attorneys and spokespersons for the Human and Community Rights Defense Unit (UNIDEHC) forced into exile in Spain, were summoned to the Madrid Police Station following the receipt of a red notice issued by INTERPOL at the request of the Salvadoran government. In an interview, Cruz explained that both appeared voluntarily before the authorities, and a Spanish court confirmed that their status as political refugees and the protection measures granted to them take precedence over any attempt at international arrest.

With UNIDEHC, Cruz and Joya have documented and denounced hundreds of arbitrary detentions, cases of torture, and more than 400 deaths in state custody under the State of Exception that has been in place since March 2022. In El Salvador, the Office of the Attorney General has accused them of unlawful association and illegal land sales in the case known as “La Floresta,” charges their defense describes as a judicial fabrication aimed at criminalizing their work.

Since 2019, Bukele’s government has repeatedly attempted to use INTERPOL against political opponents and former officials. In several cases—including requests against former presidents Salvador Sánchez Cerén and Mauricio Funes, as well as former legislator Sigfrido Reyes, all of whom were elected with the leftist FMLN party —the organization rejected issuing red notices, determining that the charges had a political basis and violated Article 3 of its statutes.

Bukele’s latest attempt to instrumentalize INTERPOL, this time against human rights lawyers, was blocked by a Spanish National Court, which dismissed the red notice on the grounds that the charges were politically motivated and violated human rights. This decision is consistent with INTERPOL’s statutes, which prohibit intervention in matters of a political nature. Thanks to this ruling, Cruz and Joya can continue their work of advocacy and accompaniment from the Basque Country, where they reside as refugees.

The persecution against UNIDEHC intensified in February 2025, when both the organization’s offices and Cruz’s home were raided while Cruz and Joya were in Spain attending meetings. That same day, twenty-one community leaders from La Floresta—including a pregnant woman—were arrested along with UNIDEHC spokesperson Fidel Zavala, who remains in prison despite international alarm for his safety.

By not returning to El Salvador earlier this year, Cruz and Joya were declared fugitives by the Fifth Court against Organized Crime, which served as the basis for requesting the red notice later issued by INTERPOL in May. Since then, international organizations such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, and the International Observatory of Lawyers in Danger have denounced the case as political retaliation.

The Spanish court’s ruling not only protects Cruz and Joya; it also sets a precedent against the abusive use of international mechanisms for political persecution. The decision reaffirms that refugee status and protective measures take priority over attempts at transnational criminalization.

International human rights and faith organizations began sounding the alarm regarding the surveillance and intimidation that Cruz and other defenders at the beginning of 2024. However, this recent case against Cruz and Joya is part of a wave of criminalization of activists and human rights defenders in El Salvador that has escalated throughout this year.

In the face of Bukele’s offensive, international solidarity is indispensable: supporting those who defend communities and human rights from exile is part of the broader resistance against repression and authoritarianism.