[Lasa] Censorship in Ecuador - Lese-presidente - Rafael Correa seeks to bankrupt his media foes

[John Sanbrailo]

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/rw/sites/twpweb/img/logos/twp_logo_300.gif]
Ecuador’s autocrat cracks down on media freedom
By Editorial, Published: July 28

THE POPULIST authoritarianism that a few years ago seemed to be sweeping Latin America is beginning to wane. Voters and politicians alike have watched the deepening economic and social disorder in Venezuela and its allies, and they sensibly concluded — most recently in Peru — that they want none of it. But in Venezuela itself, and in those countries where acolytes of Hugo Chavez took control, abuses of power and of human rights are only growing worse.

The latest evidence of this came last week in Ecuador, a small Andean nation where an erratic populist, Rafael Correa, has been faithfully imitating Mr. Chavez’s methods for concentrating power and eliminating opposition. As happened in Venezuela, Mr. Correa’s government has taken over much of the media: According to a recent report <http://cima.ned.org/publications/confronting-news-state-independent-media-latin-america> for the National Endowment for Democracy, the government controlled one radio station when Mr. Correa became president in 2007, but it now owns five television channels, four radio stations, two newspapers and four magazines.

Mr. Correa is seeking to destroy or silence the remaining independent media, which to his distress have taken on topics such as the hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts awarded to his brother. The president has filed one lawsuit<http://www.ifex.org/ecuador/2011/03/23/journalists_sued/> against the authors of a book about his brother and a second against the editorial page editor<http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110720-719608.html> and three directors of one of Ecuador’s most influential newspapers, El Universo.

Employing an archaic law that criminalizes expression “to discredit, dishonor or disparage” an “authority,” Mr. Correa demanded prison sentences and $80 million in compensation for a column in which the editor, Emilio Palacio, referred to the president as a dictator and faulted his behavior during a controversial episode in which soldiers clashed with striking police officers last year. Last week the president personally attended the trial while thuggish supporters threw eggs and bottles at the defendants outside the courthouse.

To no one’s surprise, the provisional judge hearing the case<http://www.ned.org/cima/ecuador-judge-orders-jail-fines-newspaper> quickly ruled in the president’s favor, sentencing Mr. Palacio and the three El Universo directors to three years in prison and awarding $40 million in damages to Mr. Correa — an amount that exceeds the total value of the newspaper. The defendants are appealing to higher courts, but as the media rapporteur of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights noted, the decision “constitutes a grave warning to any citizen or media outlet that has opinions or information about public officials that could be considered offensive, thus obstructing processes that are natural and necessary in any democracy.”

Such criticism is unlikely to deter Mr. Correa, who recently won approval of a constitutional amendment setting up a media oversight panel he could use to censor and fine journalists without bothering to go to court. The conclusion offered by Inter-American Press Association President Gonzalo Marroquin<http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/21/2325023/ecuador-media-takes-on-president.html> was grim but appropriate: This is a “systematic and hostile campaign to do away with the independent press and establish, by law or through the courts, ownership of the truth that all the Ecuadoran people must swallow.”


[The Economist]<http://www.economist.com/>
Censorship in Ecuador
Lèse-presidente
Rafael Correa seeks to bankrupt his media foes

Jul 30th 2011 | QUITO | from the print edition

[http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20110730_AMP002.jpg]
No news is good news for Correa

FOR a man who calls his country’s legal system dysfunctional and corrupt, Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president, has fared remarkably well in the courts. In 2008 he won $600,000 when he sued Banco Pichincha, Ecuador’s biggest bank, because it had mistakenly included him in a list of delinquent credit-card holders. On July 20th a judge ordered Emilio Palacio, a former columnist for El Universo, one of Ecuador’s main newspapers, and three of the paper’s directors, to pay Mr Correa the colossal total of $40m in damages, and sentenced all of the four men to three years in jail.

Mr Correa sued over a column, published in February, referring to a controversial incident last year in which, amid a gun battle, troops whisked him out of a hospital where he had sought refuge during a mutiny by police. The president himself claimed he was the victim of an attempted coup. Mr Palacio wrote that Mr Correa, whom he called a “dictator”, might some day face criminal prosecution for putting his own safety above anyone else’s when he told soldiers they could fire at the mutineers outside a hospital full of people. Mr Palacio implied that this was a war crime, but provided no evidence for his claim.

Mr Correa had reason to feel aggrieved at this slur. But he rejected an offer by El Universo to publish a rebuttal. His choice of remedy has cast a chill over Ecuador’s independent media. The president attended the court in person. A small crowd of his supporters pelted the defendants and their lawyers with eggs and bottles outside the courthouse. The media were barred from the hearing.

The defendants have appealed, and are seeking to have the case annulled on procedural grounds. (The sentences will not be implemented until after the appeal.) They say the damages would almost bankrupt El Universo.

Mr Correa hailed the verdict as ending a “reign of terror” by the media, though he also said he would appeal, seeking the full $80m in damages he originally claimed. He insists he wants justice, not money, and will donate the damages to an environmental scheme. (He spent half the $600,000 from Banco Pichincha—on which the tax office did not ask him to pay income tax—on a flat in Belgium.)

Ecuador’s independent media has fallen into the trap of acting as a political opposition to Mr Correa, a popular and powerful president. But Mr Correa has shown a disturbing intolerance of criticism. He is also suing the authors of a book about his elder brother’s business dealings with the government. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said the ruling against El Universo was “contrary to regional freedom-of-expression standards” and would result in self-censorship. The president may be elected, but he is doing his best to live up to Mr Palacio’s gibe that he is a dictator.

from the print edition | The Americas
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