Front Line is deeply concerned following reports of criminal charges, intimidation and defamation against human rights defender Lina Solano. Lina Solano is a founding member of the Popular Peasants Association, a member of the executive committee of the National Co-ordinating Committee for the Defence of Life and Sovereignty (NCCDLS), a member of the Women Defenders of Mother Earth (WDME), and a founding member of the Women’s Latin American Union, a regional network of women defenders of environmental rights.

Further Information

On 23 October 2008, the Public Prosecutor’s office of Gualaquiza informed Lina Solano that the Canadian mining company, Corriente ECSA, has lodged two allegations against her. The first allegation (file number 55-2007) accuses Lina Solano of leading an armed group which allegedly attacked Rosa de Oro, a mining camp property of the company Corriente ECSA in November/December 2006. Lina Solano insists that she has witnesses who can testify she was not present at this incident. The second allegation (file number 125-2008) accuses Lina Solano of leading a march during which offices of Corriente ECSA were broken into. Lina Solano acknowledges that she attended the protest, organised by the NCCDLS, but she was not part of any violent break-in. This defence has been corroborated by the Latin American Mining Monitoring Programme (LAMMP).

Since 12 April 2008, Lina Solano has received three threatening emails from an unknown person who identified himself as Fernando Aguirre. The emails informed Lina Solano that this individual has been monitoring her work and threatened her that “one of these days you will have to pay for all the evil that you do.”

According to information received, on two occasions Lina Solano has been publicly criticised by the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, during his Saturday television transmissions. On 5 April 2008. President Correa reportedly accused Lina Solano of needing to see a psychiatrist shortly after she participated in a community strike which demanded the passing of the mining mandate by the Constituent Assembly. On 18 October 2008, in a speech in which he criticised the anti-mining movement, President Correa reportedly named Lina Solano as one of the ring leaders of the movement and threatened that if the anti-mining movement continued organising demonstrations, it would have to bear the consequences.

Lina Solano has also received police intimidation and threats as a result of her anti-mining work. On 16 November 2007 the Ministry for Mining and Metals organised a conference in Cuenca to discuss the Canadian mining corporation IAMGOLD. When Lina Solano arrived for the meeting, police prevented her from entering, telling her that they had express orders from the governor to stop her attending the meeting because she was “instigating the communities not to accept IAMGOLD and the government”.

On 26 June 2007, the NCCDLS organised widespread anti-mining demonstrations on the highways around Cuenca. The following day, President Correa ordered the police to bring an end to the blockades and the protests were broken up using large amounts of tear gas. Lina Solano, along with other leaders of NCCDLS, were then detained by the police. Following the filing of a habeas corpus petition issued by the local mayor, Lina Solano was freed on 28 June 2007. The criminal prosecutor’s office subsequently started a process against the members of NCCDLS, alleging that they had shut the public roads and verbally and physically abused the police.

Human rights defenders in Ecuador believe that the allegations, intimidation and defamation by both the mining company Corriente ECSA and the authorities are an attempt to prevent Lina Solano from carrying out her work in highlighting the social and environmental impacts of large-scale mining in Ecuador. Front Line is concerned for the physical and psychological integrity of Lina Solano.