Event Summary
The national strike in Ecuador began on 18 September 2025, and remains ongoing. At the same time, a state of emergency is still in force, suspending freedom of assembly in the provinces where the largest mobilizations, usually led by the Indigenous movement, are reported.
On 28 September 2025, amid the national strike called in response to the elimination of the diesel fuel subsidy in Ecuador, the Regional Human Rights Advisory Foundation (INREDH) reported the death of Efraín Fuerez, an Indigenous community member who was killed after being struck by a bullet while participating in a demonstration on the Cotacachi-Otavalo road in Imbabura Province. Subsequent reports indicate that Fuerez was shot three times, one of them in the back. While the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) held the Armed Forces and President Daniel Noboa responsible for the citizen’s death, the Government and the Army claimed it was the result of an ambush carried out by protesters against military personnel stationed on the Cotacachi-Otavalo road.
From civil society, INREDH demanded an immediate, independent, and transparent investigation, while CONAIE denounced a pattern of repression and called for continued mobilization in response to the Executive’s measures. For the members of the Cuicocha community, the death of Fuerez—recognized as a pillar of his family and his community—has generated outrage and grief, reinforcing feelings of vulnerability and mistrust toward state institutions and the disproportionate interventions of the armed forces in the context of demonstrations. From the National Government, Minister Zaida Rovira maintained a narrative of criminalizing protest, stating that “what happened in Cotacachi was not protest: it was a cowardly ambush carried out by criminal-terrorist structures that attacked our Armed Forces,” and affirmed that these events would not go unpunished.
The cases of disproportionate repression in the context of the September 2025 national strike in Ecuador do not constitute an isolated event, but rather represent the continuation of a pattern of response to social mobilizations. What distinguishes the current scenario is the consolidation of a more forceful government strategy that has been systematically applied during the most recent administration. President Daniel Noboa has institutionalized the recurrent use of states of emergency through successive decrees, including the one issued on September 16 (Executive Decree 134), setting a precedent of permanent militarization for the control of public order. This strategy has been complemented by unprecedented measures such as the freezing of bank accounts of Indigenous organizations and the suspension of community media outlets, creating a scenario in which social protest is confronted through an expanded repertoire of legal and administrative mechanisms that reflect an escalation in the state’s containment of citizen mobilization.