Legislative caucus of Pachakutik asks to release 17 detainees in the day of protests

The coordinator of the Pachakutik bench, Rafael Lucero, asked the government of Guillermo Lasso to release 17 detainees during the day of protests on October 26 against the rise in fuel prices determined in executive decrees 230 and 231 , issued three days ago.

Lucero, along with a group of legislators from his bench, spoke of 17 people arrested throughout the country who took to the streets in protest of the new fuel prices and their freezing. The detainees are registered from Guayas, Imbabura, Cotopaxi, and there are even journalists who were attacked by the public force, he stressed.

One person was arrested in Limonal and another in Santa Lucia during protests over fuel pricing

He said that the president speaks of the country of the meeting, however, there are 17 detainees for exercising their right to protest, for which he asked the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, and the Minister of Government, Alexandra Vela, that these fighters social organizations be released immediately because he assured that the marches are peaceful and there is a national demand for the State to vindicate the people.

He recalled that Pachakutik has sat down to dialogue, but on those conversations the Government has made decisions that have left a lot to say for the Ecuadorian people; that means, he said, that there is not a country of encounter but of persecution.

The Chimborazo representative pointed out that while the National Assembly is seeking internal consensus to reach amnesties for social activists, today the current government is once again having detainees in the social struggle.

He called on the Government to let the peaceful struggle continue, that there is no need for arrests and announced that the national coordinator of Pachakutik, Marlon Santi, is making contacts with international human rights organizations to publicize what happened with the detained.

“If they say dialogue, let’s sit down and talk, but with equal conditions, not with detainees or police intimidating the social struggle,” said Lucero, after clarifying that the freezing of fuel prices has not only been raised by the indigenous movement, but also the social sectors, transporters and producers.

That the freeze should have occurred at the previous prices, not with a rise from $ 1.69 to $ 1.90 a gallon of diesel, which means 21 cents more and constitutes an economic package, he said.

On the other hand, for the official CREO sector, the stoppage announced for this October 26 did not mark the agenda, because the majority of the productive sector preferred to continue working, said Assemblyman Juan Fernando Flores.

He said that it is positive that on Tuesday morning the transport sector in Quito has made the decision not to join the convocation of a sector that wants, from a whim, to seek benefits for those it claims to represent, but when it goes to the Communities, debate and dialogue are lost from the demands they often make. (I)