(IPYS/IFEX) – On 10 March 2006, the head of the Army’s IV Division, General Gonzalo Meza, ordered the detention of all journalists, camera operators and photographers who were covering an assembly of government officials and citizens of the province of Orellana, in eastern Ecuador. The order was issued under the state of emergency decreed in […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 10 March 2006, the head of the Army’s IV Division, General Gonzalo Meza, ordered the detention of all journalists, camera operators and photographers who were covering an assembly of government officials and citizens of the province of Orellana, in eastern Ecuador. The order was issued under the state of emergency decreed in three provinces of the Amazonian region of the country on 7 March by President Alfredo Palacio, after employees of the state company Petroecuador started protests demanding better working conditions. The general also ordered the confiscation of all journalistic material of the events, be it tapes or photographs.
The journalists were detained for around thirty minutes, then released.
According to reporters sent to the region, General Meza’s orders were intended to prevent any videotaping or photographing of the military repression of a group of citizens and local leaders while they were holding an assembly in support of the oil workers in Francisco de Orellana’s Provincial Council building.
The declaration of a state of emergency restricts freedom of information and freedom of assembly, by suspending the right to hold public meetings in the region.
