Photo taken by Valeria Betancourt.
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In the context of the recent national political crisis and social mobilisation in Ecuador in October 2019 against the austerity measures adopted as part of the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), temporary shutdowns and disruptions of certain social networks, mobile communications, websites and internet connections throughout the days of protests were detected and reported.
This brief report is prepared as an input for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) observation visit to Ecuador. It aims to outline the interruptions and their effects by taking as a basis, on the one hand, information gathered through a survey targeting civil society groups, human rights organisations, community and independent media, members of the indigenous movement and activists who participated in the social mobilisation and, on the other hand, technical reports resulting from network monitoring during protests. These technical reports were produced by Netblocks.org, a civil society group working on digital rights, cybersecurity and internet governance.
As organisations working at the intersection of human rights and technology, we fully recognise the critical importance of ICTs for the fundamental right to protest, and we appreciate the openness of the IACHR to receive information on possible breaches by public and private actors of their obligations and commitments to promote and respect human rights online and offline.
Read the full report (in Spanish) here.
