In the beginning of July, human rights defender Dr Germán Antonio Ramírez Herrera was assassinated when leaving his office in the Quevedo district in the province of Los Ríos, Ecuador. Dr Ramírez Herrera was a forensic doctor in the Prison of Quevedo. He had documented and prepared reports on incidences of torture and extrajudicial executions in the prison and had previously received threats as a result of his reporting. Dr Ramírez Herrera participated in a national network of independent experts created by PRIVA (Foundation for the Integral Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence). As part of PRIVA's independent expert network Dr. Germán Ramírez documented the injuries suffered by 35 inmates during a raid by the National Police in the Prison of Quevedo. In 2009 he also documented cases of torture and executions of inmates inside this prison.
On 6 July 2010, the day of the killing, PRIVA presented the cases identified by Dr Ramírez Herrera and others to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Mr Philip Alston. They had also previously been presented to the Office of the Ombudsman and the President of Ecuador. It is very likely that the assassination of Dr Ramírez Herrera is directly related to his activities in defence of human rights, in particular his reporting on torture and other violations within the prison in Quevedo.