Attacks and threats against journalists continue

On 17th May 2023, President Guillermo Lasso decreed the dissolution of the country's unicameral parliament using a constitutional clause known as "cross-death", which allows for the dissolution of the legislature and a call for new elections. "I have decided to apply article 148 of the Republic, which grants me the power to dissolve the National Assembly due to a serious political crisis and internal commotion, for which I have signed executive decree number 741," the president said in a message, reported by France24.

The decree was issued a day after legislators began an impeachment hearing against Lasso, plunging the country into an unprecedented political crisis. Presidential and legislative elections, originally scheduled for 2025, must be organised within a maximum of 90 days, a process that normally takes six months.

Lasso has been accused of embezzling public funds for a contract between the state-owned oil transport company and a private tanker company that represented a loss for the state, accusations the incumbent president has denied.

On 24th May, the Electoral Council announced that the elections would be held on 20th August 2023, and the newly elected officials would take office on 26th October 2023. In the presidential election, if no candidate manages to win outright, a run-off vote will be held on 15th October, and the new head of state will assume office on 30th November 2023. On 2nd June, Lasso announced that he would not seek re-election.

Additionally, Ecuador is experiencing a wave of insecurity which the government attributes to the rise of drug trafficking and disputes between criminal gangs for control of the drug trade. According to a press report, 3,326 homicides were reported between January and June 2023. The previous year in the same period, there were 2,128 murders.

Expression

Journalist forced to leave the country due to threats

Fundación Periodistas Sin Cadenas (Journalists Without Chains Foundation) reported that another Ecuadorian journalist had to leave the country due to death threats and inaction on the part of the authorities to ensure protection. The victim, whose name is withheld, received threats over the last eight months. These were reported to the State Prosecutor's Office, the Communication Council, the Ministry of the Interior and the General Secretariat of Communication of the Presidency.

The above case is in addition to that of journalist Karol Noroña, a reporter for the independent Quito-based news website GK, who on 24th March met with a source who told her that the leader of a drug trafficking cartel had threatened to kill her due to her reporting on organised crime and violence in Ecuador's prisons.

Attacks and threats against journalists continue

On 9th April 2023, security guards and the supervisor of Guayarte Square in Guayaquil blocked the entrance of photojournalist Freddy Rodríguez from the newspaper Expreso as he was trying to cover a story on the Square. Expreso published a note on the incident, stating that it was a: "restriction on the rights to free mobility, freedom of the press and freedom of expression". In addition, the incident took place one day before a report was published on different contracts awarded by the Municipality for the Square. The media outlet also reported that the municipal authorities had refused to hand over the list of tenants of the premises in this public space and that neither the Directorate for Cultural Promotion nor the Municipal Communications Department had responded to the media outlet's request for interviews.

On 17th April 2023, former President Rafael Correa made a threatening comment against sports reporter Gonzalo Rodríguez who works for Radio Municipal and Mach Deportes FM. Correa called him a "cowardly insulter" and asked the mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz, who belongs to the same party, Citizen's Revolution, to "take action on the matter".

#ParaTontoNoSeEstudia," Correa wrote on his Twitter account following a comment made by Rodríguez.

On 29th June, Guayaquil News and the TVC El Comercio television channel reportedly suffered cyber-attacks on their official websites and Twitter accounts. According to Fundamedios, the director said that he still did not know whether these had been cyber attacks or other problems; however, he said that in the last three days, they had published news on alleged irregularities within the Guayaquil Fire Department.

On 23rd June in Machala, El Oro province, the National Police forcibly prevented the work of the news team from El Correo newspaper. In the morning of that day, the newspaper received news of an explosive attack in the Pacífico neighbourhood of Puerto Bolívar. But when they tried to broadcast live from the scene, a police officer forcibly took journalist Luis Becerra's mobile phone, threatening to take him into custody and beating him with batons. In addition to taking the mobile phone, the police censored the broadcast on social media.

Civil society organisations condemn violations of press freedom

In April 2023, a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) visited Ecuador to verify the deteriorating press situation. Following a meeting between the government and representatives of CPJ and Fundamedios on 18th April, the government committed to fund and implement mechanisms that will promote press freedom and improve the safety of journalists in the country. President Lasso could not attend the meeting, but the delegation met with other government representatives, local journalists, editors, members of the national assembly, authorities, and representatives of embassies and international donors.

As reported by CPJ, Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said, "The government's commitment to invest in mechanisms to strengthen the safety of journalists is consistent with and supports Ecuador's stated commitment to press freedom". For his part, the director of Fundamedios César Ricaute expressed: "The commitments made by the government to fund the protection mechanism and to request that international cooperation become more actively involved in efforts to protect journalists' work are concrete results that we value very positively and that we consider to be the beginning of greater attention from the international community toward Ecuador".

Twenty national and regional organisations have signed an urgent call on the Ecuadorian authorities to establish protocols for effective action in cases in which journalists' lives are at risk. They called on the government to implement security measures to protect targeted journalists and, at the same time, maintain robust communication with them. They also urged the government to honour its commitments to address the situation.

As part of another initiative, Fundación Periodistas Sin Cadenas (Journalists Without Chains Foundation) is carrying out the Periferias project, which portrays the conditions in which journalists work in the country's 24 provinces. The Foundation has analysed the situation in 10 provinces (Carchi, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, Esmeraldas, Guayas, Loja, Los Ríos, Manabí, Pichincha and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas) and identified high levels of risk for media workers. In the report, the most pressing problems include the political powers or organised crime which have suppressed press freedom in these provinces.

Peaceful Assembly

Combating terrorism and criminalising protest

On 27th April 2023, the State and Public Security Council issued a statement and recommendations to the Ecuadorian president on combating terrorism. One of the main recommendations was the use of lethal weapons to combat the wave of crimes and offences in the country attributed to criminal gangs, described as "terrorists". In this document, the Council recommended that President Lasso "issue an executive decree establishing urgent, coercive measures that include the use of lethal weapons to combat this serious threat that affects the Ecuadorian people".

On 29th April, the Permanent Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDH) issued a statement in reaction to this resolution. It states that the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code in Ecuador includes the crime of terrorism and sabotage, updated with the newly approved reforms, and stresses that the justice system has used this legal provision to respond unjustly to the legitimate exercise of protest. CDH concludes that the fight against terrorism is a government practice configured to criminalise protest, and which has led to the detention and prosecution of social leaders and activists who were subsequently amnestied.

"Change, Honesty, and Work"

On 24th April 2023, a group of workers launched a new trade union, Confederación de Trabajadores Solidaridad Ecuatoriana, CTSE, (Confederation of Workers Ecuadorian Solidarity), under the motto "Change, Honesty, and Work". On 28th April, the union centre's presidency called on its members to take part in the May Day march and protest in the streets of Quito, demanding the removal of the current government.

On 1st May, hundreds of members of the CTSE marched to the House of Ecuadorian Culture, marking the union's first mass action. The union stressed that its members took to the streets "to demand Lasso's expulsion; to protest the imposition of policies that exploit the workers, criminalise the popular organisations, and denigrate the life of the people; and to demand with all the strength of the working class that our rights be guaranteed".

#MandatoAntiminero

On 13th June 2023, leaders of Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador - CONAIE), the Frente Antiminero (National Anti-Mining Front), and environmental groups mobilised and submitted a complaint to the Constitutional Court against Executive Decree 754.

The decree, signed by President Guillermo Lasso on 31st May 2023, reforms the Regulations to the Organic Environmental Code. For CONAIE, the decree "imposes an illegal environmental consultation process, which facilitates the granting of environmental licences to transnational mining companies, whose concessions have been granted without complying with legal requirements and are therefore illegal".

Upon arriving at the Court, the president of CONAIE, Leonidas Iza, stated that in addition to the alleged unconstitutionality of Decree 754, other presidential decrees have threatened the lives of indigenous communities, citing Mandato Antiminero por la Defensa de la Vida, el Agua y la Naturaleza (Anti-Mining Mandate for the Defence of Life, Water, and Nature), which is backed by more than 60 organisations and was submitted to local authorities in 10 provinces on the same day.

CONAIE also questions the decrees that authorise the free carrying of arms and allow military operations against individuals and terrorist organisations, as described above on combating terrorism. According to news reports, these regulations could "stigmatise human, collective and environmental rights defenders, putting us at serious risk of vulnerability".

Association

Civil society organisations in defence of Ola Bini

Since April 2019, privacy and internet security activist Ola Bini has faced a political-judicial process in Ecuador. As reported by the Monitor on 31st January 2023, Bini was unanimously acquitted by a three-judge tribunal.

During the international conference RightsCon 2023, held in Costa Rica from 5th to 8th June, the Ola Bini Observation Mission organised a session to analyse the verdict that upheld Bini's innocence. Civil society organisations worldwide participated in this session, concluding that, according to the court, all evidence presented by the Attorney General's Office was irrelevant and had no bearing on the case. They also state in their conclusions that all case elements are key precedents for other cases of persecuted cybersecurity experts and digital rights defenders.