El Salvador’s Congress has approved a new measure that punishes anyone — including journalists — who shares information about gangs. Violators face a prison sentence of up to 15 years. Press freedom advocates are denouncing the move as censorship and warn it could lead to wrongful arrests. This is the president of the Salvadoran Journalists Association.

César Fagoaga: “I think the government is trying to prevent us from speaking about certain things, from speaking about how they made deals with gangs, how the state protects gang members from being extradited to the United States.”

This comes as the Salvadoran government continues to enforce a brutal 30-day state of emergency that has suspended several constitutional protections and led to the arrest of over 8,000 people, accused of being in gangs, in the last 13 days. Click here to see our interview on this subject.