Posts Tagged ‘Ecuador’
February 21st, 2012
Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli
offered asylum to Ecuadoran publisher Carlos Pérez Barriga, one of the owners of the El Universo newspaper. Last week Pérez was
sentenced to three years in prison and 26m GBP in fines for defaming Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa. Emilio Palacio, the journalist who penned the editorial that provoked Correa’s libel complaint, has sought asylum in the US. Pérez’s brothers — who are co-owners — are also currently in the United States and reportedly fear returning to
Ecuador.
February 16th, 2012
Ecuador‘s highest court has
upheld a criminal libel verdict favouring President
Rafael Correa, sentencing three newspaper executives and a columnist each to three years in prison ordering them to pay a total of around 26 million GBP in damages. The case was brought by Correa against opposition paper El Universo, which published a column that referred to the president as ”the Dictator”, claiming he “ordered discretionary fire — without prior notification — against a hospital full of civilians and innocent people” during a September 2010 police revolt over government plans to cut police benefits that claimed at least five lives. The verdict is not subject to appeal.
November 30th, 2011
A government official in
Ecuador has issued a
public warning against a Twitter user following posts on the micro-blogging site. Betty Escobar, an Ecuadorian citizen who lives in the United States was warned by Fernando Cordero, the President of the National Assembly, to ”change her language or she would soon regret her licentiousness.” The warning followed a critical tweet from Escobar to the official which said ”you are incompetent, you fail to comply with the law and you support the dictatorship! you and correa should go to prison for corruption! double standards. “
October 4th, 2011
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa
has threatened to bring charges against the newspaper
El Universo after publishing a letter critical of the Correa’s negative comments about María Leonor Jiménes, the Guaya Court of Justice president, on a radio program. The letter was written by legislator Cynthia Viteri, daughter of Jiménes, and in it she called the president “an ignorant coward, hypocrite and a bully”. Correa tweeted that “newspapers should not publish insults.” Earlier this year, Correa
won a libel suit against El Universo, after a columnist criticised the president. The newspaper was handed a $40 million fine and prison sentences for the owner and the columnist.
September 21st, 2011
An appeals court in
Ecuador has
upheld libel convictions and prison sentences for three newspaper directors and a former writer. El Universo newspaper published a column by
Emilio Palacio that called President Rafael Correa a dictator. Fines of $42 million were also upheld by the judges against the executives of the newspaper. President Correa attended Tuesday’s court hearing and said that the ruling meant Ecuador has begun to free itself of a corrupt press. The defendants are free pending appeal. The Committee to Protect Journalists have called the decision a
“blow to freedom of expression.”September 15th, 2011
The
Ecuadorian Telecommunications Superintendency has announced it
would seek to punish seven radio broadcasters for a simultaneous broadcast of a debate on free speech without first notifying the authorities. On Ecuador’s Independence Day (10 August), Ecuadoradio, a broadcaster owned by the El Comercio group that publishes the eponymous newspaper, organised a debate between several radio broadcasters to discuss
President Rafael Correa‘s proposed
communications bill, which would limit business interests of media companies and promotes government regulation of such companies. On the same day, several major Ecuadorian newspapers ran the same cover, titled
“For Freedom of Expression”.
August 30th, 2011
After being sentenced to three years in prison for defamation, an
Ecuadorian journalist has
fled the country and sought refuge in Miami, according to newspaper reports.
Emilio Palacio of El Universo, who was sued for criticising President Rafael Correa, arrived in the United States on 24 August. “I’d have to be blind to not understand that they want me behind bars,” he said in a letter spread via
Twitter on 28 August. Meanwhile, El Universo has published a letter directed at President Correa asking him to stop the legal action against the journalist.
August 23rd, 2011
Columnist Emilio Palacio, who was last month
sentenced to three years in prison and fined 40 million USD for calling
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa a “dictator,”
presented a video to the district attorney on 18 August that he will use to appeal his sentence. Palacio presented an anonymous video in which Correa orders his agents to take control of police strikes and protests in September. In the video, Correa states that those responsible should be “shot in the chest for treason”. Palacio said the video contradicts the president’s original testimony that he did not order the military to fire on protesting police officers.
