"Urgent call from the international community for an immediate end to repression, militarisation, and excessive use of force in Ecuador", 16 October 2025

...The undersigned organisations express our deep concern about the escalation of violence, repression and militarisation by the Ecuadorian State against the social protests initiated on 21 September, 2025, by the indigenous movement of Ecuador. In recent weeks, the persecution and criminalisation  of human rights defenders and social organisations, who legitimately exercise their rights to mobilise, to freedom of expression, and to defend human rights and the rights of nature have reached alarming levels of human rights violations.

In recent days, photos and videos of military and police convoys controlling public order, with the use of firearms and tear gas in inhabited areas, have flooded the media and social networks. They constitute clear evidence of the disproportionate and violent response by Daniel Noboa's government to the social mobilisations taking place in different parts of the country.

The data documented by Ecuadorian civil society organisations  is alarming: more than 282 people have been injured, 172 people were detained, and 15 persons were temporarily disappeared. At least three people were killed, including 46-year-old Kichwa indigenous leader Efraín Fuerez 30-year-old Jose Alberto Guamán Izam, a farmer and father of two from the community of Cachibiro and Rosa Elena Paqui, a 61-year-old Saraguro indigenous woman, died of cardiorespiratory arrest caused by tear gas inhalation. The repression has also affected the press, with journalists being attacked, detained, and having their work equipment destroyed. Military operations continue in several provinces of the country, causing the continuous increase of the number of victims. Raids without warrants, internet and telephone cuts in the provinces where protests are taking place, and summary deportations have been reported.

In addition to this grave scenario of violence in the streets, numerous reports of the criminalisation of social organisations and human and environmental rights defenders have been received...

On 8 October, 2025, seven United Nations Rapporteurs—including those on Human Rights Defenders, the Environment, Indigenous Peoples, Toxic Substances, Judicial Independence, Freedom of Association, and Business and Human Rights—sent an official communication to the Ecuadorian State (Ref. OL ECU 7/2025) expressing their concern...

On 14 October, 2025, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) published a letter expressing their concern about the repression...

The undersigned organisations make the following urgent calls:

• To the Ecuadorian State: to immediately cease the disproportionate, indiscriminate, and arbitrary use of force...
• To the Attorney General's Office of Ecuador: to withdraw the charges against social organisations and human rights defenders and guarantee that they can continue with the legitimate exercise of monitoring and denouncing violations that occur in the context of the protests.
• To Ecuadorian Human rights institutions, especially the Defensoria del Pueblo of Ecuador, to fulfill their mandate...
• We call on international and regional human rights systems, European and multilateral states and institutions to maintain active, sustained, and coordinated observation of the situation in Ecuador...