Deported Activist Attempting to Return to Ecuador

panampost.com/Rebeca Morla reported Manuela Picq is a Franco-Brazilian journalist and human-rights activist who, after being arrested in Ecuador last August while taking part in demonstrations against President Rafael Correa, was then deported to Brazil. She is still not allowed to return to Ecuador, where she lived for more than eight years and married Carlos Pérez Guartambel, an indigenous leader.

She says that Ecuadorian police officers beat and kidnapped her at the time of her arrest. On November 27, Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry confirmed its decision to deny Picq’s appeal, thus preventing her from returning to Ecuador once again.

In an exclusive interview with the PanAm Post, Picq, who currently resides in Germany as a guest scholar of the Free University of Berlin, spoke of her two-month legal battle with the Ecuadorian authorities.

After your deportation, the last thing we heard on your case was that Ecuador denied your request for a Mercosur visa, without any further details. Can you tell us what happened?

100 POINTS TO CONSIDER BEFORE MOVING OR RETIRING IN ECUADOR – READ THE BOOK

A Mercosur visa is normally approved within 48 hours. No formalities are required; it is almost automatic, given that it is a bilateral agreement between the Mercosur countries and Ecuador. Under the agreement, all citizens of Mercosur can easily travel to Ecuador, and vice versa.

They took three weeks to respond to my request. They denied the visa without interviewing me, nor did they justify the denial. We made an appeal to the Ecuadorian justice system, because they did not follow due process… Read Article