Rights and Resources Initiative expresses its solidarity with the leaders of the Indigenous rights movement in Ecuador who are being criminalized for exercising their legitimate right to mobilize and defend their human rights.
Indigenous people in Ecuador say their territorial rights are being systematically violated, according to a top United Nations official. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, is urging the Ecuadoran government to form a “truly plurinational and multicultural society” in accordance with its constitution and international law.
On September 28, 2008, the people of the Republic of Ecuador passed a new Constitution, seen as a historic document which recognizes both indigenous peoples’ land rights and livelihoods and the rights of nature.