WPFC of HR Denounces Harsh Prison Sentences/Fines against Ecuadorian Journalists

Washington, USA, July 27, 2011 - The World Press Freedom Committee of Freedom House —an organization bringing together 43 press freedom groups from throughout the world— expresses its concern over the alarming attempt of Ecuador's President Rafael Correa to seek prison terms for news media executives involved with criticisms of him. This is a central feature in a new court case, in which El Universo newspaper has also been fined an astounding $40 million over a critical opinion piece.
 
On July 20, Judge Juan Paredes ruled for President Correa, who had sued El Universo, its three publishers —brothers Carlos, César and Nicolás Pérez— and columnist Emilio Palacio for insulting the office of the President in an opinion piece published Feb. 6. All four have been sentenced to three years in prison.
 
The piece did indeed include tough language, and even unsubstantiated allegations. Palacios wrote that President Correa ordered to open fire on "a hospital full of civilians and innocent people." He also accused Correa of "crimes against humanity." Correa's all-out legal offensive against El Universo threatens to put the newspaper, with its hundreds of media workers, out of business.
 
The Pérez brothers offered a public apology to President Correa and asked him to set its terms. President Correa rejected that offer and vowed to appeal the sentence to demand the full $80 million in damages he had originally sought.
 
“In the midst of this judicial obfuscation and apparent obsession over what others think or say about him, President Correa is neglecting a fundamental aspect of this controversy,” said Javier Sierra, WPFC of FH Projects Director. “He himself chose to immerse himself into public life and tacitly accepted to be the main target of the slings and arrows of the country's news media and the rest of society. This is a basic tenet of democracy: public officials, especially heads of states, must grow a thick skin and accept the criticisms that are hurled at them —even if they may, of course, seek reasonable civil damages for libelous statements.”
 
President Correa's general inability to withstand criticism has turned him into a regular of the country's courts of law. In May 2007, he sued a member of the board of directors of La Hora newspaper because he had the audacity to call the President's actions “shameful.” In March, Correa sued two investigative journalists who wrote a book titled “Big Brother” revealing alleged murky schemes by his brother. And in 2010, Correa arbitrarily got involved in yet another criminal suit against columnist Palacio, seeking the stiffest available penalty against the journalist.
 
By suing El Universo under Art. 230 of the Criminal Code, also known as desacato law, President Correa has joined the list of some of the region's most autocratic leaders, who often and painfully invoked this undemocratic statute turning expressions of opinion into crimes. Desacato, or insult, laws were exported by the Spanish empire to Latin America and the Caribbean, and dictatorial regimes in the 1970s and 1980s updated and brandished them with gusto.
 
President Correa's actions contravene the rulings of the Inter-American justice system and the spirit of the American Convention on Human Rights, of which Ecuador is a signatory. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has commented that desacato laws “conflict with the belief that freedom of expression and opinion is 'the touchstone of all freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated' and 'one of the soundest guarantees of modern democracy'.”
 
And the Commission added: “The desacato laws are an illegitimate restriction to freedom of expression” and their use “to protect the honor of public functionaries acting in their official capacities unjustifiably grants a right to protection to public officials that is not available to other members of society. This distinction inverts the fundamental principle in a democratic system which holds the government subject to controls, such as public scrutiny, in order to preclude or control abuse of its coercive powers.”
 
President Correa's chronic inability to deal with criticism, even misguided or inaccurate, reveals a stubborn rejection of some of the most basic tenets of democracy. His fondness of jousting with his critics and all-out offensives to put them out of business and out of the public arena denotes unwillingness to accept democratic rules of the game.
 
WPFC of HR urges the Ecuadorian justice system to respect the country's inter-American commitments and, in dealing with the presidential appeal to aggravate this already excessive sentence, to recall that President Correa is a public official who must be willing to accept criticism without abusive resort to his country's court system. It is one thing for him to seek reasonable civil damages for false or exaggerated allegations, but it is quite another for him to invoke the criminal code in an attempt to imprison critics who, in this instance, were prepared to apologize.