Ecuador: order to investigate alleged torture in prisons under military intervention

An Ecuadorian judge has ordered the Ombudsman's Office to investigate alleged acts of torture by the military in several prisons in the country, within the framework of a state of emergency applied by the Government since early January to end a crisis of prison riots.

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Constitutional Judge Manuel Peña, of the port city of Guayaquil, has also ordered that uninterrupted medical care be provided to people deprived of their liberty, as reported this Sunday by the Committee of Relatives for Justice in Prisons, the organization that presented an appeal for habeas corpus on the situation in prisons.

Judge Peña, according to the source, has ordered “monitoring the mental health status of the detained people” and has asked the Ombudsman's Office to within 45 days to investigate the allegations of alleged “acts of torture that have existed in the prisons of Ecuador”.

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He has also urged “the Armed Forces to respect the law and frame their actions with respect for dignity”, and has indicated that the National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), the State penitentiary agency, must “provide mattresses, access to electricity, drinking water, food, toiletries and personal hygiene supplies directly” to people deprived of liberty, who do not “have to pay for it,” according to the Committee's statement.

Likewise, he assured that The judge has declared “the State responsible for action and omission” in this case of violation of rightssince the military has apparently engaged in “actions that violated the personal integrity of people deprived of liberty by subjecting them to mistreatment that could presumably be torture.”

And by omission, since, according to the Committee, “SNAI is not exercising its competence to manage the centers due to military intervention”.

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For the Committee, the judge has declared the responsibility of the Armed Forces “for violation of rights in prisons.”

At the moment, neither the Government nor the law enforcement agencies have commented on this judicial decision that occurs within the framework of the joint operations carried out by the military and police on a national scale, in prisons and streets, to put an end to the spiral of violence. that broke out in early January throughout the country.

On January 9, the Government of President Daniel Noboa applied a state of exception and decreed the “internal armed conflict” to stop the spiral of violence attributed to organized crime.

The wave of violent actions was unleashed when the president of Ecuador was apparently preparing to launch the so-called “Phoenix Plan” against crime.

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In principle, this strategy sought to regain control of the prisons, many of them internally dominated by criminal groups, whose rivalries left more than 450 prisoners murdered since 2020 in a series of prison massacres.

Violence also moved to the streets, turning Ecuador into one of the most violent countries in the region, with 45 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023.

EFE