标签： Dominican Republic

In the coastal town of Cabarete, located in Puerto Plata province of the Dominican Republic, a long-running legal conflict over land rights and public beach access has entered a new phase: private investment firm Inversiones Calpe, S.R.L. has begun installing concrete bollards along the boundaries of what it confirms is its privately held parcel at the popular surf destination Playa Encuentro.

Led by U.S. investor Lance B. Lundberg, the company has emphasized that all construction work is taking place strictly within its registered property lines. The bollards, company representatives explain, are only intended to block unauthorized vehicle and foot traffic that has historically cut across the private land to reach the beach. Far from cutting off public access to the shoreline, Calpe notes that the project leaves intact the court-recognized public access route that all visitors can use to reach the beach. To accommodate beachgoers, the firm has even set aside part of its land for public parking, added public restrooms, outdoor showers, and on-site security for visitor convenience.

Beyond property protection, Calpe frames the boundary installation as an environmental conservation measure. By redirecting all public traffic to the designated public route, the work will cut down on unregulated vehicle passage through ecologically fragile coastal habitats, helping to preserve the area’s sensitive natural ecosystem, the company says.

All of the current work aligns with a series of binding Dominican court rulings dating back to late 2024. In a decision issued April 30, 2025, the Fifth Chamber of the Superior Administrative Court (TSA) ordered that Calpe be allowed to fence and mark the boundaries of Parcel 1-Ref-13, Cadastral District No. 2 of Puerto Plata, without interference from any government bodies. The ruling also required state institutions to remove misleading signs placed on the private property that incorrectly directed beach traffic across the land, and correct incorrect directional signage in surrounding areas. The court explicitly stated that public access to the beach’s public-domain section should not use Calpe’s private land, as a formal public right-of-way already exists for that purpose.

The legal dispute originated with an earlier TSA ruling issued November 13, 2024, which first ordered state agencies to end interference with Calpe’s property rights and correct misleading access signage. When compliance stalled, the court issued a follow-up ruling on April 10, 2026, finding that two key agencies—the Ministry of Tourism and the Dominican Navy—had failed to comply with the 2025 order for 213 days, between June 24, 2025 and January 22, 2026. The court imposed cumulative daily penalties (called astreinte) totaling RD$213,000 to be paid jointly by the two agencies, gave them 30 days to achieve full compliance, and increased the daily fine for future noncompliance to RD$1,500. This 2026 ruling also explicitly banned the Ministry of Tourism and Dominican Navy from entering the private property without explicit permission from Calpe.

Calpe further confirmed that the Third Chamber of the Dominican Supreme Court of Justice rejected appeals filed by the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources challenging the 2025 TSA ruling, in a decision dated December 18, 2025, numbered SCJ-TS-25-4322.

According to Calpe, the current bollard and fencing project simply fulfills the rights granted to the company by these binding court decisions. The work’s core goals are to clearly mark the private parcel’s boundaries, deter unauthorized trespassing, and direct all beach visitors to the court-authorized public access route. The company has issued a public call for both government authorities and beach visitors to respect two equally important principles: the public status of the majority of Playa Encuentro, and the private property rights that have been repeatedly upheld by Dominican courts.

A broad group of Dominican government institutions have been involved in the dispute, including the Ministry of Tourism, the Committee for the Execution of Tourism Zone Infrastructure (CEIZTUR), the Dominican Navy, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, and the National Environmental Protection Service (SENPA).

Santo Domingo — Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader has doubled down on his administration’s pledge to inject greater competition into the country’s telecommunications sector, arguing that new market entrants will drive up service standards and cut consumer costs amid a decades-old concentrated market structure.

In remarks delivered during a public press briefing, Abinader specifically addressed the upcoming entry of a new Vietnamese-owned telecommunications provider, framing the move as a core part of his government’s broader economic agenda. That agenda centers on dismantling entrenched oligopolistic and monopolistic control across key domestic industries by opening closed markets to new domestic and international competitors, the president explained.

Current market dynamics leave the Dominican telecommunications sector heavily concentrated, Abinader revealed: roughly 95% of the entire market is controlled by just two dominant incumbent operators. As a direct result of this limited competition, local consumer telecommunications rates sit roughly 22% above the regional average for Latin America, he added. The president contended that expanded competition will force existing and new operators alike to ramp up investment in modern network technology, upgrade customer service offerings, and align pricing with more competitive regional benchmarks.

While the administration prioritizes supporting domestic Dominican investment, Abinader clarified that the country actively welcomes responsible investment from foreign firms based in allied nations, so long as those entities do not pose any identifiable threat to Dominican national security.

Speaking specifically to the incoming Vietnamese investment, Abinader noted that Vietnam maintains a strategic alliance with the United States, and emphasized that any telecommunications firm seeking to operate in the Dominican Republic is required to adhere strictly to international information security standards and regulatory safeguards. The president closed by reaffirming that the administration’s overarching goals are to foster fair, open competition across the sector, upgrade the quality of telecommunications services available to the public, and deliver tangible, long-term price reductions for all Dominican consumers.

SANTO DOMINGO — A coalition of leading LGBT+ rights organizations in the Dominican Republic has launched a formal legal challenge before the country’s Constitutional Court, pushing to fix what they call a critical gap in the newly enacted national Penal Code. At the center of the dispute is Article 173, the statute that codifies penalties for discriminatory conduct across the country.

The coalition presented its arguments during a public hearing for an unconstitutionality action filed against the current text of Article 173. Rights advocates emphasize that the provision outlines criminal penalties for discrimination rooted in a range of personal attributes — including sex, skin color, age, disability, nationality, religious belief and political affiliation — carrying sentences of two to three years of imprisonment alongside financial fines. Yet notably, the text fails to explicitly name sexual orientation as a protected ground against discriminatory acts.

Organizations behind the legal action include Colesdom, Diversidad Dominicana, Amigos Siempre Amigos (ASA), Trans Siempre Amigas (Transsa), Casa Quisqueyana, Revasa, Proactividad and TEPA. Representatives of these groups stress that their lawsuit does not seek any special or exclusive rights for LGBT+ Dominican people. Instead, their core demand is targeted legal reform that would deliver clearer, more robust legal protections against bias and unfair treatment.

Advocates warn that the current legislative omission creates dangerous legal ambiguity, opening the door for inconsistent, arbitrary interpretations of anti-discrimination law that could leave LGBT+ people without meaningful recourse when targeted for bias. They note that systemic discrimination against sexual and gender minority groups remains an ongoing, tangible crisis across the Dominican Republic, pointing to empirical evidence from the 2020 National LGBT+ Survey. That landmark study documented widespread vulnerabilities for LGBT+ people across every sector of public life, including routine exclusion from employment, unlawful denial of public and private services, pervasive bullying in educational and community spaces, high rates of family rejection, and systemic barriers to accessing equal justice under the law.

In a scheduled working gathering held this Tuesday at the headquarters of the National Emergency and Security System 911 in Santo Domingo, the agency’s top leader welcomed the newly appointed head of the Dominican Republic’s Emergency Operations Center (COE).

Colonel Randolfo Rijo Gómez, executive director of 911 and a member of the Dominican Army (ERD), hosted Colonel Erdwin Robert Olivares Luciano, who recently stepped into the role of COE director, for in-depth discussions on a range of priority topics shared by both organizations.

During the closed-door working session, the two senior officials walked through existing operational frameworks and mapped out adjusted collaborative strategies designed to tighten coordination between the two leading Dominican emergency response bodies. The overarching objective of these adjustments is to boost the nation’s overall capacity to react quickly and effectively when emergencies and natural disasters strike.

By the end of the meeting, both directors publicly reaffirmed their shared commitment to sustaining consistent, close institutional collaboration. They also agreed to move forward with a series of joint projects in the coming months, all centered on delivering faster, more reliable emergency assistance to Dominican residents across the country.

This high-level meeting forms part of a broader, ongoing push across Dominican Republic’s public safety sector to strengthen inter-agency alignment for emergency management. The initiative aims to break down potential communication barriers and create a more integrated, comprehensive response system that can fully address all citizen needs during crisis events.