New York, April 21, 2005 Photographer Julio Augusto García Romero died Tuesday evening, after inhaling tear gas while covering a demonstration in downtown Quito, Ecuador’s capital. The demonstration, organized to protest the now-ousted President Lucio Gutiérrez, was moving toward the Palacio de Carondelet, the seat of the executive branch, when police fired water cannons…
Ecuador Lucio Gutiérrez, who was elected president in 2002 on an anticorruption platform, repeatedly lashed out at the press in 2004 over allegations of nepotism and campaign finance irregularities. The president and government officials regularly accused the media of “spreading half-truths.” Given the government’s hostility, journalists fear that a new access to information law may…