A week after being arrested for allegedly slandering Attorney General Washington Pesántez in a blog post, Víctor Vizcaíno Luzuriaga was freed pending trial by a judge, El Diario and Radio Sucre report.
Vizcaíno was arrested on May 3, 2011 for allegedly writing a publication in a blog that defamed the prosecutor. In an interview with Teleamazonas, he said he was not the author of the blog and that his identity was stolen.
Conflicts over freedom of expression have grown due to President Rafael Correa’s tense relationship with the media. Most recently many media outlets opposed a May 7 referendum that will create a content regulation council and limit the ability of banks to invest in media companies.
In a recent attack on press freedom, the offices of the Ediasa media company in the western Ecuadoran city of Manta were shot at by unknown attackers. Jaime Uglade, the editor of Ediasa – which owns El Diario newspaper, Manavisión TV, and Radio Amiga – told Fundamedios that no one was injured in the May 7 attack.
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» Global Voices (Ecuador: Blogger Detained for Offenses Against Attorney General )
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
