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In an apparent effort to silence protests against the Ecuadorian government, the government’s financial agency froze indigenous and environmental groups’ bank accounts using secret intelligence information, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, commented that the measures in question constitute a misuse of anti-money laundering mechanisms, which “should be used to fight crime and not environmental groups.”
The Ecuadorian financial crimes agency (Unidad de Análisis Financiero y Económico, UAFE) cited secret intelligence reports to justify the freezing of the funds. Among the groups affected was the Indigenous organization Alianza Ceibo, made up of Waorani, Siekopai, A’i Cofán, and Siona Indigenous peoples, which has defended the economic, social, cultural, and collective rights of Indigenous people for 10 years.
The groups were reportedly neither notified of the decision nor did they know which judge was assigned to their case. Further, authorities did not disclose reasons for the freezes. UAFE officials cited the June 2025 Intelligence Law to argue that this information was confidential. After taking the cases to court, judges lifted some of the freezes because the agency did not provide sufficient substantial evidence for the ban.
To freeze the accounts, the UAFE applied a provision in Ecuador’s new Social Transparency Law to make the funds on the accounts inaccessible. The law, passed in August, enables the agency to freeze accounts without a court order when it claims to have “objective, serious, and verifiable evidence” of suspicious activity, with a review only being post factum. Further, the law limits the measure, as it should be “exceptional,” “proportionate to risk,” and “limited exclusively to the amount of the [suspicious] transaction.”
Both the intelligence law and the Social transparency Law are incompatible with the Ecuadorian constitution, human rights groups say, and have challenged them both in court.
The actions by the agency interfere manifestly with the human right to property, codified in International Human Rights Law and Inter-American Convention. The IACtHR ruled previously that limitations to the right to property must be necessary and proportionate to reach a legitimate goal.
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa defended the measures publicly, saying that the funds were intended to “destabilize” his administration with demonstrations. The financial measures where implemented over the past two months as some Indigenous and environmental groups protested against the government’s decision to stop Diesel subsidies and to approve a mining project in the southern province of Azuay, threatening the fragile ecosystems in the region. To curb the protests in October, authorities reportedly used massive and indiscriminate force, resulting in injury and, in some cases, death.
The post Ecuador criticized for freezing indigenous and environmental groups bank accounts appeared first on JURIST - News.
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Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, commented that the measures in question constitute a misuse of anti-money laundering mechanisms, which “should be used to fight crime and not environmental groups.”
The Ecuadorian financial crimes agency (Unidad de Análisis Financiero y Económico, UAFE) cited secret intelligence reports to justify the freezing of the funds. Among the groups affected was the Indigenous organization Alianza Ceibo, made up of Waorani, Siekopai, A’i Cofán, and Siona Indigenous peoples, which has defended the economic, social, cultural, and collective rights of Indigenous people for 10 years.
The groups were reportedly neither notified of the decision nor did they know which judge was assigned to their case. Further, authorities did not disclose reasons for the freezes. UAFE officials cited the June 2025 Intelligence Law to argue that this information was confidential. After taking the cases to court, judges lifted some of the freezes because the agency did not provide sufficient substantial evidence for the ban.
To freeze the accounts, the UAFE applied a provision in Ecuador’s new Social Transparency Law to make the funds on the accounts inaccessible. The law, passed in August, enables the agency to freeze accounts without a court order when it claims to have “objective, serious, and verifiable evidence” of suspicious activity, with a review only being post factum. Further, the law limits the measure, as it should be “exceptional,” “proportionate to risk,” and “limited exclusively to the amount of the [suspicious] transaction.”
Both the intelligence law and the Social transparency Law are incompatible with the Ecuadorian constitution, human rights groups say, and have challenged them both in court.
The actions by the agency interfere manifestly with the human right to property, codified in International Human Rights Law and Inter-American Convention. The IACtHR ruled previously that limitations to the right to property must be necessary and proportionate to reach a legitimate goal.
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa defended the measures publicly, saying that the funds were intended to “destabilize” his administration with demonstrations. The financial measures where implemented over the past two months as some Indigenous and environmental groups protested against the government’s decision to stop Diesel subsidies and to approve a mining project in the southern province of Azuay, threatening the fragile ecosystems in the region. To curb the protests in October, authorities reportedly used massive and indiscriminate force, resulting in injury and, in some cases, death.
The post Ecuador criticized for freezing indigenous and environmental groups bank accounts appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.