15 Sep 11 | Index Index, minipost
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”.
30 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
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.
23 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
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.
18 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
Ecuadorian journalist Peter Tavra Franco, who was sentenced to six months in prison for libel on 19 July, now faces a 10 million USD fine. The charges were presented by siblings Milton and Mónica Carrera, after Tavra published a story in the newspaper El Universo in February 2009 in which he narrates the plaintiff’s escape after being arrested for human trafficking from Ecuador into the United States. The Carreras claimed that the story’s publication caused “great damage to their honour, public image and prestige”, while Tavra asserted he had “used police documents” that established cause for the arrest. In a separate case in the country, radio journalist Freddy Aponte is facing a third conviction in a lawsuit for slander filed by the former mayor of Loja, José Bolívar Castillon.
