Quito, Feb 11 (EFE).- An Ecuadorian judge has ordered the Ombudsman’s Office to investigate alleged acts of torture by the military in several prisons in the country.
The move comes under the state of emergency enacted by the government at the beginning of January to end a prison riot crisis.
Constitutional Judge Manuel Peña, of the port city of Guayaquil, has also ordered that uninterrupted medical care be provided to the inmates, as reported by the Committee of Relatives for Justice in Prisons, the organization that presented a habeas corpus appeal on the situation in prisons.
Judge Peña, it said, has ordered “monitoring the mental health status of the detainees” and has asked the Ombudsman’s Office to investigate allegations of “acts of torture that have existed in the prisons of Ecuador.”
He has also urged “the Armed Forces to respect the law and frame their actions in respect for dignity,” and has indicated that the State penitentiary agency, must “provide mattresses, access to electricity, drinking water, food, toiletries and personal hygiene supplies directly” to the inmates for free, according to the Committee’s statement.
It added that the judge has declared “the State responsible for action and omission” in this case of violation of rights, since 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.”
By omission, since, according to the Committee, the agency “is not exercising its competence to manage the centers due to military intervention.”
For the Committee, the judge has declared the responsibility of the Armed Forces “for violation of rights in prisons.”
For 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 spate of violence that broke out in early January throughout the country.
On Jan. 9, the government of President Daniel Noboa enforced a state of emergency and decreed an “internal armed conflict” to stop the wave of violence attributed to organized crime.
The violence was unleashed when the president of Ecuador was apparently preparing to launch the so-called “Phoenix Plan” against crime.
In principle, this strategy sought to regain control of the prisons, many of them internally dominated by criminal groups, rivalries of which killed more than 450 prisoners since 2020 in a series of prison massacres.
The disorder also moved to the streets, turning Ecuador into one of the most violent countries in the region, with 45 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023. EFE
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