Protect Indigenous Peoples’
Right to Protest
Since the beginning of the national mobilization, the response of the state has been to stigmatize, repress, and criminalize the protests taking place across the country. As a result, there have been multiple acts of persecution, criminalization, and abusive and disproportionate use of force against dozens of leaders and protestors, as well as the denial of freedoms by state security agents.
In addition, there have multiple documented instances of human rights violations, the denial of civil liberties, acts of violent persecution, and the disproportionate use of force against dozens of Indigenous leaders and protestors.
The undersigned individuals and civil society organizations urgently ask the Ecuadorian State, particularly the judicial institutions, to guarantee access to due process and to ensure criminal law will not be abused to persecute and to deter the work of the Indigenous movement who have been criminalized for exercising their legitimate right to protest.
Likewise, we ask President Guillermo Lasso and Law Enforcement to respect the mobilization of the Indigenous Movement and to begin a meaningful dialogue addressing their outlined concerns.
We demand judicial independence for the Indigenous leaders and human rights defenders carrying out their vital roles while exercising their Constitutionally guaranteed right to assemble.
SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS
WHAT CAUSED THE ECUADOR NATIONAL STRIKE?
On Monday 13th June 2022, the Indigenous movement in Ecuador started an indefinite national strike to show their discontent against President Lasso’s government’s neoliberal and extractivist policies and to demand that their rights be respected.
Since day one of the strike, the government has repressed the right to social protest and criminalized Indigenous leaders, including the illegal detention of Leonidas Iza, the current president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE).
Iza was illegally detained, without proper warrant, or due process. He was held at an undisclosed location for 20 hours and forced to sign documents without explanation – actions by the state that directly violate key human rights.
The Ecuadorian government’s aggressive criminalization of the Indigenous movement, its use of violent repressive tactics on Indigenous leaders, the participants of the strike, and the population victimized by its condemnable policies, is a matter of extreme concern.
Although Iza has since been conditionally released, violent arrests continue to surge across the country. CONAIE demands the constitutionally guaranteed right to protest be respected and states the national strike will continue until the demands of the people are met.
Indigenous peoples across Ecuador are requesting access to labor rights, a cap on surging fuel prices, an end to extraction projects across ancestral lands, and that their Constitutionally-granted right to protest be respected!
WE CONDEMN LASSO'S VIOLENCE ANGAINST PROTESTORS AND ASK FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
KEEP UPDATED ABOUT THE ECUADOR NATIONAL STRIKE LATEST NEWS!
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