President Rafael Correa made the statements in relation to a recent meeting between a government delegation, led by Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patiño, and members of the IACHR, to talk about the sentence against the newspaper "El Universo".
(Fundamedios/IFEX) – On Saturday 31 March 2012, President Rafael Correa – during his 265th Saturday radio and TV program – discredited the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) because of its “intervention in Ecuador’s internal affairs”. He also expressed his disagreement with OAS Special Rapporteur Catalina Botero’s opinions and the fact that they may be binding.
He made these statements in relation to a recent meeting between a government delegation, led by Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patiño, and members of the IACHR, to talk about the sentence against the newspaper “El Universo”.
The president warned the international organization: “Remember your place, here you will find sovereignty and dignity. You thought we were going to hang our heads…we are going to call you to account for the outrages you committed because of one of 12,000 trials for slander, not against a common citizen but against the owners of a newspaper”.
He added that the Commission interfered in the trial against the paper, even destroying its own regulations. “We are going to demand that they show how it was they decided to ask for precautionary measures regarding a sentence that hadn’t even been made and did not comply with the requirements needed to grant those measures,” he stated.
During the segment titled “Freedom of expression now belongs to all”, Correa accused Fundamedios’ director, César Ricaurte, of being a “liar”. He stated that in statements he made to the newspaper “Hoy”, Ricaurte had pointed out that the president’s “forgiveness without forgetting” in the case of journalists Juan Carlos Calderón and Christian Zurita, was nothing of the sort, because the lawsuit had not been withdrawn. Moreover, he said, the president had filed a confusing appeal, in which he stated he would pardon a nonexistent debt, but demanded that the journalists pay for his attorneys’ fees.
Rafael Correa asserted “All that is false. It is obvious that on pardoning the debt, my lawyers’ fees are included. They know that. They are mad, how is it possible that they should invent such a thing. This Mr. Ricaurte, of Fundamedios, is a liar.”
