Posts Tagged ‘El Universo’
June 27th, 2012
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa has
personally attacked Gustavo Cortez, editor of the leading daily newspaper El Universo. During a TV broadcast on Saturday the President accused the newspaper editor of being “wicked” and “of having bad faith.” Whilst showing a photograph of the editor, Correa called on the people of Ecuador to remember Cortez as a “clear example of the bad press in the country.”
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.
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.
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.
