Search Results for: Ecuador

The Fifth Session of the Fourteenth National People’s Congress of China concluded on Friday. This assembly serves as the highest legislative body in the state, and its final resolutions entail modifications to existing legislative acts. During the session, 161 members of the Standing Committee were present, and the number of participants met the quorum requirement. [...]

A UN official expressed concern Wednesday over the recent wave of violence against justice officials in Ecuador. Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, said that four criminal prosecutors were assassinated between 2022 and 2023. In June, prosecutor Leonardo Palacios died in these attacks. Palacios was shot while leaving [...]

A political activist for the Revolución Ciudadana (RC5) party in Ecuador’s Esmeraldas province was assassinated on Monday, as confirmed by RC5’s presidential candidate Luisa González. Few details about the death activist Pedro Briones are public, other than the fact that it occurred in the northern part of Esmeraldas. This comes less than one week after [...]

A census released Monday revealed almost one sixth of inmates in Ecuador’s prisons are yet to be sentenced. President Guillermo Lasso announced that the census would be used to help government form new public policy to tackle overcrowding and enforce human rights in Ecuadorian prisons. The 2023 Prison Census—the first of its kind in Ecuador—collected [...]

Iceland issued new legislation banning “conversation therapy.” The legislation, passed late last week, would ban any attempt to change an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. The new legislation, proposed by Viðreisnar parliamentary party chair and Reform Party MP Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, punishes anyone making an adult undergo conversion therapy with up to [...]

President of Ecuador Guillermo Lasso dissolved Ecuador’s National Assembly and called for new elections Wednesday just one day after his impeachment trial began. Lasso will also rule by decree for economic matters, subject to oversight by the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court, until the upcoming legislative and presidential elections. The General Secretariat for Presidential Communications says that [...]

At least 12 inmates were killed Friday following gang-related riots at an Ecuadorian prison. In an announcement, a Quito-based advocacy group reported that 12 were killed and three were injured in riots at the Litoral Penitentiary in the city of Guayaquil. The group, the National Comprehensive Care Service for Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent [...]

Ecuadorians Sunday voted in local elections and a referendum containing a number of measures aimed at reforming Ecuador’s constitution. As of Monday night, all eight referendum measures have been defeated. President Guillermo Lasso proposed the referendum in September 2022. The referendum included eight measures to which the voters could cast either a “yes” or “no” [...]

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported Tuesday that killings of journalists “rose sharply” last year, with 68 journalists being killed in 2022. This is a 50 percent increase from 2021. Of those deaths, CPJ confirmed that 41 were related to their journalistic work. CPJ continues to investigate the other 26 killings to determine if [...]

The UN Security Council Tuesday welcomed new members Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland. This is the first time Mozambique and Switzerland have held seats in the security council. The council consists of 15 countries. Five of them–China, France, Russia, the UK and the US–are permanent members with veto powers. The other ten members are elected [...]