QUITO- Ecuador declared a new state of emergency on Tuesday in six of the country’s 24 provinces and a mining town plagued by drug violence, after the Constitutional Court ruled a similar measure in June to be inappropriate.
The state of emergency, which allows the government to suspend citizens’ rights, will apply in the coastal provinces of Guayas, Los Ríos, Manabí, Santa Elena and El Oro and in the jurisdiction of Camilo Ponce Enríquez (in the Andean Azuay) for 60 days, according to the decree released by the Communications Secretariat.
The government argues in the document that “crime has escalated quantitatively and qualitatively to an alarming and unprecedented level of intensity.”
Under the state of emergency, President Daniel Noboa suspended the rights to the inviolability of the home and correspondence, and to free association.
“The Armed Forces and the National Police are empowered to prevent and break up gatherings in public spaces where potential threats to security are identified,” the decree adds.
In mid-June, the Constitutional Court declared inadmissible a similar measure issued a month earlier for those provinces and the Amazonian province of Sucumbíos, arguing that the Executive had not adequately justified the reasons.
Since June, military and police headquarters have moved from Quito to the fishing port of Manta (in the province of Manabí), with a view to curbing the rise in crime in that area following the murder of a substitute legislator.
Last year was the bloodiest for Ecuador due to violence unleashed by drug gangs fighting for power. Homicides climbed to a record 47 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to the rate of 6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018.
Following a drug attack in January, Noboa declared the nation in internal armed conflict and ordered the Armed Forces to take to the streets to neutralize around twenty criminal organizations, which he described as belligerents and terrorists.
Source: With information from AFP
