Yesterday, we celebrated a major human rights victory in Ecuador! With 99 votes, the Ecuadorian Congress granted amnesty to 268 people, primarily Indigenous defenders who had been criminalized and persecuted for their work to defend their territories, rights, and nature.

Our longtime allies Acción Ecológica, with support from Ecuador’s Human Rights Alliance, Amazon Watch, and other human rights and environmental organizations, led the process to secure amnesty. Our team in Ecuador focused our support on documenting and defending 40 Shuar Indigenous people targeted for their resistance to mining activity in Ecuador’s southern Amazon, where we have been working together with the Shuar Arutam for five years.

Ecuador’s Human Rights Alliance emphasized the vote’s importance: “Through the assembly members, [Ecuador] has recognized the fundamental role of human rights defenders in a democratic society. Granting them amnesty means removing at least one of the obstacles they have in their defense work. It is a symbolic reparation; it is their right to truth and justice.”