Affirming the verdict would send a message to others in Ecuador to get in line or risk losing their livelihood. And if a president’s most outspoken critics in the news media can be silenced by the courts in one country,
Miami Herald | Editorial
It seemed appropriate that President Rafael Correa of Ecuador was hosting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a state visit last week just as the Correa-controlled courts were poised to deliver another blow to freedom of the press. As in Iran and nearby Venezuela, the president seems to be waging an all-out drive to muzzle, if not destroy, the independent news media in his country.
Since becoming president, he has used all the powers at his disposal — state-controlled media, rubber-stamp lawmakers, the courts and the presidency itself — to intimidate the news media and put an end to criticism of his government. Ironically, in view of his autocratic record, the president feels he’s been libeled by a newspaper column that called him a dictator.
Stung by a column in the 90-year-old El Universo, called “No to Lies,” Mr. Correa filed a criminal defamation lawsuit last year. He asked the courts to find the writer and the newspaper’s directors guilty and sentence them to the maximum term of three years in prison, plus payment of $50 million. He sought $30 million more from El Universo’s parent company.
The defamation case is the culmination of a campaign to silence Ecuador’s press. It includes blacklisting some news organizations from receiving government ad revenue, creating a media-regulation board, closing the national TV station for a few days and taking control of three TV stations after they were seized in court proceedings against a failed bank.
The case against El Universo sets a terrible precedent by criminalizing free speech. Four months of closed-door hearings ensued after the lawsuit was filed, along with changing the judge overseeing the case four times. Seeking to save their newspaper, the directors offered to run a correction, to be written by the president, but Mr. Correa rejected it.
Although the trial record ran to 5,000-some pages, the judge delivered a 156-page verdict against the defendants within 24 hours. That prompted the newspaper to file a criminal malfeasance complaint against the judge based on the allegation that he did not write his own ruling. A forensic analysis of his computer led a U.S. consultant hired by the defense to conclude that the ruling was written by the president’s own lawyer.
Despite this, the columnist and El Universo’s directors were sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay the president $30 million. The newspaper was ordered to pay an additional $10 million. In September, an appeals court upheld the verdict, and in December another appeals court, the National Court of Justice, further upheld the specific verdict against the author, Emilio Palacio. By that time, he had already fled the country for Miami.
The appeal by executives of the paper has yet to be heard. Waging a vigorous defense, they have filed a motion challenging the judges selected to hear the case, claiming they are biased on behalf of the president. The president’s backers seem confident they’ll win. Earlier this month, Vice President Lenin Moreno said Ecuador’s press will have to be more careful after the court announces its ruling.
The eventual outcome of the case will be crucial to freedom of the press in Ecuador and throughout Latin America.
Affirming the verdict would send a message to others in Ecuador to get in line or risk losing their livelihood. And if a president’s most outspoken critics in the news media can be silenced by the courts in one country, other presidents who share Mr. Correa’s thin skin and authoritarian zeal may seek to do the same.
