Ecuador

CPJ wrote to Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa today to urge him to denounce the jailing of two journalists for defamation and to bring his country's press law in line with international standards of freedom of expression and rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

New York, July 8, 2008--Ecuadoran government agents seized two private television stations early this morning and shuttered a critical radio station late Monday night. The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by allegations that the actions were politically motivated.

Members of the government's Deposit Guarantee Agency (AGD), backed by dozens of police officers, seized the Quito offices of local television station Gamavisión and the premises in Quito and Guayaquil of TC Televisión, according to local and international reports. The government said the TV stations were seized because of alleged ties to Grupo Isaías, a conglomerate owned by bankers accused of embezzlement in the late 1990s, according to press reports. AGD, a state agency that protects depositors in banks that closed or went bankrupt during the financial crisis of the late 1990s, took over more than 100 other properties linked to the Grupo Isaías in the past day, The Associated Press reported. The current owners of the stations say they have no business connections to the two men charged in the embezzlement case, both of whom are fugitives, AP said.

Nova York, 8 de julho de 2008--Agentes do governo equatoriano intervieram em duas estações privadas de televisão nesta manhã e fecharam uma estação de rádio crítica na noite de segunda-feira. O Comitê para a Proteção dos Jornalistas (CPJ) está preocupado com as acusações que sugerem que tais ações tiveram motivações políticas.

New York, June 23, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Ecuadorian authorities to investigate the death of Raúl Rodríguez Coronel, who was shot to death this morning in Guayaquil. CPJ is investigating all possible links between Rodríguez’s work as a journalist and his death.

Rodríguez, news vice president and host of the daily news and opinion program “Buenos Días Ecuador” (Good Morning Ecuador) on the Guayaquil-based Radio Sucre, left the radio station shortly after 7 a.m. today, Radio Sucre’s manager, Gabriel Arroba, told CPJ. After finishing this morning’s show, Rodríguez drove to Guayacanes, a neighborhood north of the city, to pick up family members, said Arroba. When he arrived at his cousin’s house at around 7:15 a.m., an unidentified man wearing a hat approached him and fired a weapon, witnesses told Radio Sucre reporters. According to Arroba, witnesses said Rodríguez hid behind a car but his aggressor followed him and fired more shots before fleeing in a nearby taxi driven by an unidentified woman. Rodríguez was taken to local Kennedy Clinic, where he died an hour later from four gunshot wounds to the leg, pelvis and torso, Arroba told CPJ.

President Rafael Correa regularly bashed the news media after taking office in January, reflecting increasing tensions between his young socialist government and the powerful business groups that control the country’s media. Correa immediately called for a new constitution that would expand the power of the executive branch, loosen term limits, and allow for greater government control over the media. In September, Correa’s Movimiento Alianza País party took an important step toward those goals by winning an overwhelming majority of seats in the constituent assembly that will rewrite the 1998 constitution.