Facing growing street protests demanding his ouster, President Lucio Gutierrez declared a state of emergency in the capital and dissolved the Supreme Court in an effort to resolve an escalating political crisis.
The state of emergency placed the military in charge of maintaining public order. Gutierrez, with the military high command standing behind him, announced in a televised address to the nation Friday night that under the authority provided by the Constitution, he was dismissing "the judges of the current Supreme Court designated by Congress" in December.
"The measure ... was taken because Congress until now has not resolved the matter of the current Supreme Court, which is generating national commotion and especially in the city of Quito ... which rejects the operation of the Supreme Court."
PHOTO: AFP
A state of emergency suspends individual rights, including the right to free expression and public assembly, and allows police to enter private homes without the need for search warrants. The government noted in a news release that previous governments have made use of states of emergencies frequently. It gave as an example President Sixto Duran-Ballen's 1992-1996 administration, which declared states of emergencies on 12 occasions.
Quito residents did not heed the restriction on public assembly, and within two hours of the presidential announcement, tens of thousands of people poured into the streets.
Gutierrez's political foes were quick to condemn his action.
"One stupid act is not cured by another stupid act" said Jaime Nebot, a leader of the opposition Social Christian Party who is mayor of the coastal city of Guayaquil. "All conscientious and decent Ecuadoreans want the bastard court to go, but it cannot be done by a dictatorial and illegitimate act of the president."
Quito Mayor Paco Moncayo, a retired army general and a leader of the opposition Democratic Left party, joined in condemning the measure and criticized the military high command for supporting Gutierrez's actions.
"The president can't dissolve the court. We are living in a dictatorship and this decree unmasks the dictatorship," he said. "We are calling for civil disobedience."
There was little turnout earlier this week when Gutierrez's political opponents called a giant demonstration against his purge of the Supreme Court.
But street protests began Wednesday night and increased in numbers until at least 10,000 people marched Friday night in several sections of Quito, banging pots and sticks and shouting "Get out, Lucio!"
The street protests were in response to the impromptu battle cry of a local radio station to join a nocturnal pot-banging caravan.
"We want to restore dignity and tell all of the political leaders that they are not on the same level as the people," Paco Velasco, director of the Luna radio station, told listeners Friday.
The court crisis was set in motion in November when the former justices sided with opposition politicians in a failed effort to impeach Gutierrez on corruption charges.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS