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The Latest Tactic for Silencing Ecuador’s Environmental Defenders: Shuttering Their Bank Accounts
As the country moves to intensify mining and oil operations, environmental and Indigenous leaders’ bank accounts are being frozen or closed. Such “debanking” cuts them off from financial support and paralyzes their work.
By Katie Surma
It was a sweltering January afternoon in the Amazonian town of Puyo when Andrés Tapia realized his daughter’s public school fees were due. Like many Ecuadorians, he reached for his phone to make a mobile transfer.