President Daniel Noboa has repeatedly accused Indigenous protesters and land defenders of being financed by organized crime and called the protests “acts of terrorism.” During the recent protests, interior minister John Reimberg spoke directly about account freezes, saying in an interview with local journalist Jimmy Jairala, “the issue of the accounts is fundamental,” as protesters are receiving financial backing from people trying to “destabilize the country and create chaos,” he says.
The bank freezes have been criticized by several human rights organizations, with Juanita Goebertus, Human Rights Watch’s director of the Americas, warning the Ecuadorian government to increase transparency and ensure peoples’ rights to defense be respected.
The United Nations Human Rights Office also called the account freezes part of a “pattern of attacks [that] seems designed to silence civil society organizations and Indigenous peoples,” it wrote in a special report released in October. Experts of the report go on to say the adoption of the Law of Social Transparency “stigmatizes and criminalizes the social sector.”