Journalist Walter Vite, who was convicted April 27 to a year in prison and a $500 fine for allegedly libeling a mayor, has initiated a hunger strike to demand his release, the Associated Press and Ecuadorinmediato report.
According to El Universo, the charges stem from three-year-old comments Vite made on a radio show that were allegedly libelous to the mayor of Esmeraldas, Ernesto Estupiñán. “This is not justice,” Vite said, quoted by Vistazo.com. “If one is convicting a man for the courage to think, to feel in opposition, it represents backwardness.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the authorities to free Vite and bring Ecuador’s laws up to international freedom of expression standards. “The decision to imprison Vite on defamation charges shows that Ecuador is out of step with the regional consensus to decriminalize defamation," said CPJ senior Americas coordinator Carlos Lauría.
These defamation provision that the CPJ calls “outdated” are currently being used by President Rafael Correa to sue opposition journalists.
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.
