Press freedom under attack

Opinion: January 23, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Miami Herald: 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 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.

Although the trial record ran to 5,000-some pages, the judge delivered a 156-page verdict against the defendants within 24 hours. 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 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 verdict is being appealed.

The eventual outcome of the case will be crucial to freedom of the press in Ecuador and throughout Latin America.