"For us it is a total mistake. Reducing the risk for journalists to four criminal risks is not recognizing that the main risks and aggressions have come from the State in the last 12 years," César Ricaurte said
The late Juan Javier Ortega Reyes and Paúl Rivas Bravo from newspaper El Comercio of Ecuador are among the 21 press professionals whose names will be added to the Journalists Memorial at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
After a second and final debate, on Dec. 18, Ecuador's National Assembly approved reforms to the country’s Communication Law (LOC, for its acronym in Spanish), indicated by experts as the most repressive on the continent.
United not only by cultural and geographical similarities, but also by the type of problems that their countries face politically, economically and socially, seven journalistic organizations have formed the Voces del Sur alliance to systematize the monitoring freedom of expression in their countries.
For more than four months, 19 Ecuadorian and Colombian journalists from different media, along with national and international organizations, followed the tracks of three press colleagues abducted and murdered on the border between the two countries earlier this year.
Ecuador’s Organic Law of Communication (LOC, for its initials in Spanish), considered by press freedom organizations as the most repressive law of the continent, could be reformed before the end of 2018.
Data verification, or fact-checking, of facts of public interest and declarations of public figures has become a worldwide trend. This practice goes back to one of the basic principles of journalism, like the contrasting of sources.
The Attorney General’s Office of Ecuador announced the capture of “Cherry,” who they said is the alleged material author of the abduction of the journalistic team from Ecuadorian newspaper El Comercio.
The repression and fear that the government of President Rafael Correa (2007 - 2017) imposed on the Ecuadorian media and journalists is apparently coming to an end after the arrival of Lenin Moreno last year,according to a recent report by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ).
Colombian authorities announced the capture of the alleged fourth in command for the Oliver Sinisterra Front who they said was responsible for the custody of the Ecuadorian journalists who were abducted in March, and later killed.
The Colombian and Ecuadoran governments confirmed that three bodies found in Tumaco, Colombia belong to the El Comercio reporting team that was abducted on March 26 while reporting in the border region.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos posted on Twitter on June 21 that three bodies were found that could belong to a team of journalists and their driver who worked for Ecuadoran newspaper El Comercio and were reportedly killed in a border region by a dissident group of the FARC.