Covid-19: Ecuadorian vaccination critics organize to oppose mandatory immunizations

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Alongside their petition to stop mandatory vaccinations in the country, Ecuador’s Working Group Against Covid Vaccination Discrimination has collated all information on how to support their efforts on a website.

The site Derechos Humanos Ecuador links to both the petition as well as the organization’s Telegram Group. In addition, it also shares articles and videos on the fight against mandatory coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines both in Ecuador and around the world.

PETITION STATES THAT VACCINE MANDATES VIOLATE ECUADOR’S CONSTITUTION

This new information website comes alongside a recent petition against mandatory vaccinations in Ecuador. The same petition also seeks to prevent discrimination against Ecuadorians who refuse to be injected with “experimental” Covid-19 vaccines.

“This petition has been created as an urgent response to an attempt (and bureaucratic overreach) by various parts of Ecuador’s government to make the Covid-19 vaccination effectively mandatory for all. Such a measure is unacceptable on every level,” the petition states.

The people behind the petition also say that even those who get vaccinated should still be against the precedent that is being set with mandatory vaccines. This is to make every citizen or resident accept government-mandated vaccinations whenever the latter deems them necessary.

The petition goes so far as to say that the proposed direction by the Ecuadorian government and its agencies is immoral and illegal. It also states that mandatory vaccinations go against several international agreements and declarations that Ecuador has signed.

Some of these agreements purportedly include the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2005 Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights; the Declaration of Helsinki; the Nuremberg Code; 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

More importantly, it points out that Ecuadorian citizens have the right to refuse any proposed measures by the government under Ecuador’s Constitution.

“Our objections and protests are due to the Ecuadorian government attempting to violate the rights of men, women, and children who do not wish to be vaccinated,” the petitioners state. “And we remind said ‘authorities’ that citizens can refuse proposed measures and are legally empowered to resist said measures as illegal, unconstitutional, dictatorial and fascist under the protection of Article 98 of Ecuador’s Constitution.”

“All citizens without distinction of political ideology, socio-economic or cultural condition are equal before the law as Art. 11 No. 2 mandates,” they add. “Accordingly, we demand respect from the authorities for our sovereign right to refuse the vaccine and also, to not be discriminated against for making that choice.”

ECUADOR’S NEW PRESIDENT PUSHING FOR MASS VACCINATION

Ecuador is currently in the middle of a government-mandated mass vaccination drive against Covid-19. The drive started in July, following newly elected President Guillermo Lasso’s promise to vaccinate nine million people during his first 100 days in office.

Lasso’s administration hopes to push the country towards herd immunity and revive the country’s economy with the drive.

During a virtual press conference, Ecuador’s Minister of Public Health, Ximena Garzon, said that her ministry coordinates with the country’s Armed Forces and its National Electoral Council to set up mass vaccination centers around the country. The latter is set to allow the use of more than 300 spaces that had been equipped to serve as voting centers in the recent April election.

The government will also deploy mobile vaccination brigades to hard-to-reach rural areas.

Meanwhile, local governments have started testing the waters with various vaccine mandates. Authorities in the province of Loja had tried to require vaccination cards to enter businesses this month. The effort eventually faltered after the provinces’ Ombudsman’s Office stated that the mandate violated several rights guaranteed by the country’s constitution.

Despite the overturning of this mandate, several others are currently in the wings, including a similar one set to be implemented in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city.