Below, Amazon Frontlines reproduces the full statement from Alianza Ceibo, PAKKIRU and UDAPT.
Quito, Wednesday, November 5, 2025 – Anti-corruption judge Vicente Fernando Hidalgo Maldonado accepted the request to revoke the account freezes imposed on the Ceibo Alliance Foundation, the Kichwa Nation of Pastaza – PAKKIRU, and the Union of Victims of Texaco – UDAPT. This measure was requested by Ecuador’s Financial and Economic Analysis Unit (UAFE) on October 6 and ratified by a judge on October 8. Judge Hidalgo Maldonado emphasized that the freeze was entirely unjustified, since it had not been demonstrated that the organizations pose any threat to security or public order, or that they finance violent acts or terrorism. The UAFE presented no information or evidence to that effect during the hearing.
The judge also recalled that the State must guarantee and protect the right of association, represented by these three organizations, and that it cannot illegitimately interfere with their actions, which should be presumed to be legal, legitimate, and carried out in good faith; nor should they be subject to harassment or stigmatization.
While the UAFE arrived empty-handed, our legal team provided the judge with information, including agreements, declarations, audit reports, bank certificates, acknowledgments, and other documents demonstrating that our actions are transparent and carried out in defense of human, collective, and environmental rights.
The judge ordered that the Superintendency of Banks and the Superintendency of Popular and Solidarity Economy be notified of the order to unfreeze the accounts. This order must be carried out immediately, and these entities must inform the judge of their compliance within 72 hours.
The affected organizations arrived at this hearing on an uneven playing field; we’d been criminalized, stigmatized, and not allowed to access the information necessary to exercise our right to defense. Despite this, we presented the judge with all the arguments and documentation that support the transparency and legality of our activities and financial transactions.
During the hearing, we demonstrated the disproportionate and arbitrary nature of the request by the Financial and Economic Analysis Unit (UAFE) and the subsequent ratification by a judge to freeze these funds. Based on Article 17.3 of the Transparency Law, the freezing of funds must be supported by a suspicious activity report that identifies objective, verifiable, and serious indications of wrongdoing. Furthermore, the same law stipulates that the measure must be exceptional and applied only to the equivalent amount of the suspicious transaction.
None of the above has been presented by the UAFE (Financial and Economic Analysis Unit), and therefore, none of the requirements to freeze these funds have been fulfilled, since we still do not know the alleged action or “suspicious transaction” that supposedly motivated the freezing of funds. Despite this, all the organizations’ bank accounts were frozen, and to date, there is no investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office into these alleged and false insinuations by the UAFE.
Proof of the UAFE’s illegal and arbitrary actions in ordering the freezing and unfreezing of funds is evident in the case of the PAKKIRU organization, whose funds have already been unfrozen, without receiving any reason for the measure or the unfreezing, nor any indication as to whether the measure will be taken again in the future. It should be emphasized that the unfreezing occurred even though the precautionary measure ordered by the Judge was still in effect.
For these reasons, we ask the judge to reverse the measure, declare all actions taken null and void, and provide sufficient guarantees to prevent it from happening again.
Representatives of the UAFE (Financial and Economic Analysis Unit), focused on stating that it had no knowledge of the report that prompted the blocking of the information, that it could not be presented because it was considered classified and confidential, and that only the National Intelligence System, the agency to which the UAFE belongs, can declassify the information. Thus, at the hearing, the UAFE did not provide any arguments or evidence of the existence of alleged suspicious activity, much less anything that could justify the necessity and proportionality of maintaining the precautionary measure. It should be noted that Article 55 of the Intelligence Law, concerning the classification of information, is one of the articles suspended by the Constitutional Court precisely because it contains unconstitutional flaws.
At this hearing, the organizations were accompanied by the Alliance of Human Rights Organizations. They attended in person at the North Judicial Complex in Quito, while their members and staff participated virtually.
In light of this, we wish to state the following:
- Blocking accounts is a clear strategy of stigmatization and criminalization against human rights defenders and organizations. It seeks to paralyze us and force us to focus on our legal and reputational defense while the Ecuadorian State advances its extractive agenda, which includes oil and mining concessions in Indigenous territories.
- These freezes have created serious challenges to the continuity of our activities in our communities, where there is a structural absence of the State, which mostly arrives to impose or enable dispossession and pollution.
- The rights of the workers in our organizations are being violated, as they have not been paid their salaries due to the economic blockade.
- We will continue to defend ourselves against the unjust and illegitimate persecution and the bellicose rhetoric of the President of the Republic, Daniel Noboa, and we will maintain our activities in defense of our territories.
- And if they intend to continue investigating and persecuting us, we will continue to demonstrate our transparent and respectful conduct, adhering to our obligations and being guided by our aims and objectives—and, fundamentally, by our support and defense of human rights, nature, and Indigenous Peoples. This stands in stark contrast to the actions of the government and its institutions, which use unconstitutional laws passed by the government to persecute, stigmatize, and criminalize human rights defenders and organizations that may oppose its extractive and commodifying objectives regarding nature and Indigenous territories.
QUOTES:
“The judge ruled in our favor. There was no evidence or reason for freezing the accounts. We always had a transparent and compelling response regarding our work; honest work that we have been doing and will continue to do.”
Jairo Irumenga, Waorani Leader and Executive Director of the Ceibo Alliance
“Today, we were able to demonstrate that the account freezing measure ordered by the UAFE was never appropriate, necessary, or proportionate. After 28 days of freezing, the entity did not provide any new evidence confirming the need to maintain this measure.”
María Espinosa, Human Rights Defender and Lawyer for the Ceibo Alliance
“UDAPT, Ceibo Alliance, and Pakkiru demonstrated that we are indeed transparent, that we do comply with the law, that we do declare and pay the corresponding taxes, and that we do everything possible to help and reach those whom the State does not: Indigenous communities, farmers, cancer patients, and other communities excluded by the Ecuadorian State.”
Pablo Fajardo, human rights defender and lawyer for UDAPT
“We have demonstrated once again that the Ecuadorian State is using laws, such as the intelligence law and the social transparency law, to persecute organizations and leaders. Pakkiru’s account was blocked with a mere $100, and then unblocked without a court order. This means that the justice system is being manipulated and that there is a campaign of persecution against organizations like ours that have been very outspoken in defending collective rights and the Rights of Nature.”
Luis Canelos, President of PAKKIRU
