Ecuador

Twitter user Danny Ayala, who uses the handle @DayalaEc on the social network, was notified of an urgent action against him requested by President Rafael Correa from the Prosecutor’s Office, because Ayala had allegedly “incited an attack against his life”.

On the evening of 22 May, the Minister of the Interior reported the arrests of seven people suspected of involvement in the death of journalist Fausto Valdiviezo, who was killed on 11 April 2013 in Guayaquil.

The Minister of the Interior has filed a formal complaint against the former chief of military intelligence for attempting “to disrupt the public order of the State” after he made some comments during a radio interview about an alleged link between security forces and drug trafficking.

Despite the acceptance of the vast majority of observations on free expression in Ecuador at the 2012 U.N. Universal Periodic Review, Fundamedios is concerned that in practice no advances are evident.

On Thursday 2 May 2013, the radio programme “Hablemos Claro”, broadcast by Radio Marejada in the coastal province of Manabí, was taken off the air. According to the programme’s director, Trajano Andrade, it was suspended due to pressure exerted by the Municipality of Manta.

The Provincial Court of Justice of the Province of Carchi has annulled the conviction for non-aggravated libelous injury previously handed down to journalist and chief executive of the newspaper La Nación, Yaco Martínez.

A recent government programme attempted to discredit Fundamedios and its executive director by accusing them of obtaining funds from USAID via “another NGO”.

President Rafael Correa has disparaged the human rights organization Freedom House and the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression for its recent reports on Ecuador, which he characterized as “manipulated”.

Martín Pallares received threats via Twitter after he published an article in which he questioned the government’s media coverage of the launch of an Ecuadorian satellite.

On Thursday 18 April 2013, journalist Christian Zurita of the newspaper El Universo was physically attacked by provincial prosecutor Simón Lara Grueso in the border town of Esmeraldas – located 318 km north of Quito – while covering the trial of one of the accused in the drug trafficking case known as “Resurgir”. Zurita told […]

Judge Lucy Blacio of the National Court of Justice sentenced Assembly member Cléver Jimenez and former union leader Fernando Villavicencio to one and a half years in prison for the crime of slander against President Rafael Correa.

President Rafael Correa has confirmed he will take legal action against the newspaper La Hora for the crime of “incitement to hatred” and the dissemination of “ideas based on superiority or racial hatred” after it published a series of photographs depicting the murder of an indigenous Waorani couple.

Reporters Without Borders hopes for quick results from the investigation into journalist Fausto Valdivieso Moscoso’s murder on 11 April 2013 in Guayaquil. The motive is not yet known but press reports quoted local sources as saying he had been the target of a murder attempt 24 hours earlier and had received threats.

The Criminal Division of the National Court of Justice acquitted journalist Freddy Aponte, previously sentenced to five years in prison for the crime of fraudulent bankruptcy in a trial initiated by Bolívar Castillo, the former mayor of the city Loja.

On Tuesday 12 March 2013 seven people, among them police officers and municipal officials, entered the home of Juan Alcívar, a journalist and correspondent for the newspaper La Hora in the city of Concordia, for allegedly occupying public property without municipal permission.

On 16 March 2013 President Rafael Correa urged Defense Minister María Fernanda Espinosa to decide on the judicial actions that could be applied against Ecuavisa TV after the station broadcast a report on 11 March about alleged favoritism in the promotion of three colonels in the Ecuadorian Armed Forces.