The International Press Institute (IPI) is gravely concerned at the decision on Wednesday by Ecuador’s National Court of Justice to uphold a lower court decision ordering El Universo newspaper to pay $40 million to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and sentencing the paper’s owners, brothers Carlos, César, and Nicolás Perez, to three years in prison.
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday (local time), after 15 hours of proceedings, the justices declared the arguments set forth by the defense as unfounded. “This outcome is one more link in a chain of events that constitutes an attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and it sets a grave precedent for democratic life in Ecuador,” El Universo said in an editorial published today.
President Correa personally introduced the defamation lawsuit in March 2011 after the paper’s then-opinion editor, Emilio Palacio, published a column titled “No a las mentiras “(“No to the lies”). The column alleged that the president had ordered “discretionary” gunfire at a hospital during a police revolt in September 2011.
Before final deliberations began, one of the judges asked both sides if they had reached a resolution. The defendants’ attorney, Monica Vargas, said the Guayaquil-based newspaper “has always been open” to a solution. Correa, meanwhile, declared: “In the face of such dirty tricks at this point in time an apology cannot be accepted,” The Associated Press reported.
Upon hearing of the verdict, Correa expressed satisfaction and added that he had been forced to suffer “bad faith in the name of press freedom”. According to Reuters, the President said: “This is going to change history.”
IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills said: “Yesterday’s ruling is a severe blow to freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Ecuador. While many nations are moving to decriminalise defamation offences, governments in Latin America are increasingly making use of legal mechanisms to silence a critical press. This can only lead to self-censorship and the weaking of democracy.”
El Universo will now appeal to the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights for a stay of the decision, as the newspaper has exhausted all legal possibilities in Ecuador, local media reported. However, as previously reported by IPI, Ecuador has worked to weaken the Commission, in part because Ecuador does not agree with statements issued by the OAS Special Rapportuer for Freedom of Expression in regards to the current situation of press freedom in the country.
As the deliberations in Quito came to a close, brothers César and Nicolás Perez gave a press conference in Miami in which they expressed fear for their physical safety. Following Palacio, who felt compelled to seek political asylum in the United States at the beginning of this month, the two co-owners fled the country as a consequence of the proceedings against them, AFP reported. The newspaper’s management had said the fine would likely bankrupt the paper, given that its total capital is just $35 million.
Although Nicolás Pérez said that they were not planning to seek political asylum, he did not say when they would go back to Ecuador. Their return would depend on the ICHR. As the verdict was read, only Carlos Pérez remained in Ecuador, but he announced today that Panamá granted him political asylum.
According to local media reports, clashes broke out around the courthouse where the deliberations were taking place. While covering the confrontations, a reporter for El Universo was kicked twice, a journalist for RTS was insulted, and a cameraman for RTU was beaten with sticks.
The deliberations took place in the midst of a controversy unleashed on 14 February, when the judge who first heard the case, Mónica Encalada, said that she had been pressured by the president’s lawyers into issuing the original verdict. According to a sworn declaration issued by Encalada before she fled the country, one of Correa’s attorneys wrote the sentence, though the lawyer in question has denied doing so.
IPI reiterates its concern over the deterioration of press freedom in Ecuador. Last week IPI rejected the decision sentencing two other journalists to pay 1 million dollars to President Correa to compensate him for alleged “moral harm”. Christian Zurita and Juan Carlos Calderon, in their book “El Gran Hermano” (“Big Brother”), investigated the alleged link between Fabricio Correa, the president’s older brother, and firms that received state contracts worth millions of dollars.
