This week, three community leaders who have peacefully opposed the Curipamba – El Domo mining project in Bolivar, Ecuador, were sentenced to 4 years in prison for the alleged crime of violating private property. According to local civil society organizations, the trial was marked by irregularities and the judge prevented a monitoring group of national and international human rights organizations from participating in the final hearing.
The actions by the court represent a worrying bias of the Ecuadorian justice system in favor of transnational power, in this case, the Canadian mining companies Silvercorp Metals Inc. and Salazar Resources Ltd. with their local operator Curimining S.A., which, according to local groups, have repeatedly violated human rights, collective rights and the rights of nature, affecting several agricultural communities and their territories. The sentenced defenders, together with thousands of other local inhabitants, have resisted this mining project for almost two decades because it threatens critical water sources that sustain dozens of Indigenous and campesino communities.
In solidarity with the three sentenced defenders, Inclusive Development International has joined local, regional and international human rights groups in issuing a statement of concern about the systematic use of the justice system to silence and criminalize human rights and nature defenders in Ecuador. We will continue to monitor this case as the judicial process continues with an appeal and we urge Ecuador’s human rights authorities to do the same, given the potential for human rights violations that it entails.
Read the full statement here.