"Ecuadorian human rights organization denounces criminalization of anti-mining protest", 24 March 2024

...Ecuador’s Ecumenical Human Rights Commission (CEDHU) issued a couple of statements this week denouncing the criminalization of anti-mining protests by law enforcement agents.

One of the statements blasted a recent decision by the Criminal Court of the Andean Bolívar province, which sentenced six environmental activists to three years in prison and to pay a fine of $4,600 for illicit association against the Curipamba – El Domo mining project. The copper-gold project, located in the Las Naves canton, is being developed by Curimining S.A., a joint venture between Canada’s Adventus Mining and Salazar Resources...

In a different communiqué that echoes a series of complaints posted over social media by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), CEDHU criticized that 70 people from the rural communities of Las Pampas and Palo Quemado, in the central Cotopaxi province, were charged with terrorism for protesting against an environmental consultation related to Canadian miner Atico Mining’s...

The charges against the locals were laid after a series of confrontations between the two sides and the police, which took place in the context of the consultation related to La Plata...

Both Cuniming and Atico were contacted for comment but did not respond by publication time...