Ecuador’s Moreno opens new era in relations with media
Less than a month after taking office, Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno engineered a ceasefire in the decade-long battle between the government and the nation’s independent news media by inviting a group of radio, TV, and newspaper editors to the Carondelet presidential palace in Quito.
Journalist facing charges in Ecuador files for asylum in Peru
New York, April 18, 2017–Ecuadoran journalist Fernando Villavicencio, director of the news website Focus Ecuador and a critic of outgoing President Rafael Correa, today filed a petition for political asylum in Lima, Peru. A statement from the regional press group Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) said the journalist, who fled to Lima after presidential elections…
Judge orders journalist’s arrest for publishing confidential documents
New York, November 15, 2016–An Ecuadoran judge last night approved an arrest warrant for journalist Fernando Villavicencio on charges of distributing emails sent by public officials, according to the journalist’s lawyer. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on authorities to revoke the warrant.
Ecuadoran news websites face harassment
Ecuadoran news websites that published corruption allegations were the target of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on May 9, 2016, according to a joint letter Ecuadoran editors and press-freedom advocates sent to the Committee to Protect Journalists on May 13. In a DDoS attack, the attackers seek to overwhelm a website’s server with rapid,…
How U.S. copyright law is being used to take down Correa’s critics in Ecuador
On December 30, César Ricaurte, the executive director of Fundamedios, received a copyright complaint with the potential to close his entire website. The complaint, filed on behalf of Ecuador’s communications regulator SECOM by a company called Ares Rights, ordered the independent press freedom group to remove an image of President Rafael Correa from its website,…
Correa steps up fight; hacking alleged on both sides
Seven months after Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa flirted with the idea of offering asylum to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, intercepted communications and leaked emails are again making headlines in the Andean country. This time, the story is not about international surveillance but a window onto the latest front in the ever-escalating war…