The conflict that the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, has with the majority of media in his country is no secret. Since approving the Organic Law of Communication (LOC by its initials in Spanish) in 2013, different national and international organizations have denounced its restrictions on freedom of speech and press freedoms in the country.
Through Twitter accounts of officials or public institutions in Ecuador, 1,384 Tweets with speech disparaging, discrediting or stigmatizing the press in the country were published between June 2012 and November 2015.
While journalists in Ecuador who were part of the global journalistic investigation known as the Panama Papers are facing a “campaign of harassment” led by the country’s President Rafael Correa and his followers, in Peru and Panama, the most adverse reactions have come from the traditional media and civil society, respectively.
In the midst of efforts by civil society to improve dialogue between the LGBTQ community and media, the Ecuadorian government has determined that a cartoon by El Universo cartoonist Xavier Bonilla, known as Bonil, which appeared to comment on gender identity, is not discriminatory.
In the continuing saga between Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa and cartoonist Xavier “Bonil” Bonilla, the head of state took time out of his weekly national broadcast Jan. 30 to address a recent cartoon published in newspaper El Universo.
With a "humorous and satirical tone" the Andean Foundation for Social Observation and Media Study, known as Fundamedios, launched Censuracom.ec, in which the organization recorded "the most alarming attacks on freedom of expression and of the press" in Ecuador.
Ecuador’s controversial agency that controls the content of media outlets (Supercom, as it is known for its acronym in Spanish) has again admitted a complaint against newspaper El Universo for a cartoon created by Xavier Bonilla, known as Bonil.
The decision of the National Assembly of Ecuador to adopt amendments to the constitution on Dec. 3 caused alarm for freedom of expression organizations in that country.
After the Provincial Court of Pichincha in Ecuador denied the appeal for protective action filed by Brazilian journalist Manuela Picq on Oct. 1, her lawyer announced that the case will be presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Days after the Ecuadoran government shelved a process to dissolve a press freedom watchdog group in the country, the Associated Press (AP) reports that President Rafael Correa told the agency Latin American journalism in the worst in the world and a threat to democracy.
The dissolution process against the Andean Foundation for Media Observation & Study, also known as Fundamedios, was shelved following notification from the National Communications Secretariat (Secom) to the NGO, Fundamedios reported on its Twitter account on Sept. 25.
As Ecuador’s main press advocacy organization fights to stay alive in the face of government orders to dissolve it, an international forum of journalists and free speech advocates released a 15-point action plan to address challenges to freedom of expression in that country.