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Communiqué of the Ecuadorian Association of Newspaper Editors to the candidates
Posted On 06 Mar 2017
Nine Ecuadorian media that make up the Association of Newspaper Editors presented an exhortation, through a statement, to the presidential hopefuls for the second round.
“We ask candidates Lenin Moreno and Guillermo Lasso to commit themselves now to repeal or reform the laws that constitute the toolbox of the state of propaganda and the system of censorship and persecution established in our country, especially the opprobrious Law Of Communication and its instruments, such as the sinister special court called Superintendency of Communication.” This was the statement of El UNIVERSO, La Hora, Expreso, Extra, El Diario de Manabí, El Mercurio, La Marea, and Diario Super newspapers, as well as the magazine Vistazo, regardless of who is elected president of the Republic of Ecuador on April 2, 2017.
As part of this call, they propose that the final candidates to the Presidency publicly pronounce their decision to radically change the hostile scenario for communication and freedom of expression, configured during the current government.
They also call for the defense of independent journalism and the media, “without which it is not possible to conceive of a genuinely democratic Ecuador.”
They also urge the candidates to express categorically their willingness to adopt a new, comprehensive legislation, consistent with international standards for freedom of expression and the press, and with various treaties and decisions of Human Rights Courts.
“Now that the 2017 electoral process has entered the final stretch, the private companies that publish Ecuador’s independent newspapers and magazines call on Ecuadorians to agree on a common agenda to rescue fundamental rights, especially the right to freedom of expression, which generates the protection and defense of all the constitutional guarantees of the citizens,” they say.
“Once again, we call for the defense of independent journalism and the media, without which it is not possible to conceive a truly democratic Ecuador.
This convergence is necessary since the media and journalists are suffocated by the system of coercion, censorship and economic pressures brought by the authoritarian institutional structure created by the current regime.”
