IACHR Answers Correa Governments Accusations

Jose de Jesus Orozco, President of IACHR

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) defended itself against the accusations received yesterday by the Ecuadorian government regarding the precautionary measures about El Universo case.

Last Thursday, Ricardo Patiño, the Ecuadorian Foreign minister, denounced to the Organization of American States (OAS) that IACHR overstepped its boundaries in El Universo Case and called it “inquisitor of the states.” Although IACHR had warned that it could only approach specific cases if both parties where present to guarantee the equality of the process. Patiño blamed IACHR for “speeding up” the precautionary measures on favor of the newspaper directors Carlos, Cesar and Nicolas Perez as well as the former editor of opinion, Emilio Palacio.

When the president of IACHR, Jose de Jesus de Orozco, was aware of a press conference from named “Government of Ecuador exposes before IACHR its position regarding the precautionary measures for El Universo case,” the president reminded the delegation that the meeting was to discuss exclusively matters of general character. Regarding the offer made by Patiño during the meeting, IACHR agreed that once it is formalized, they will set a date.

The former official of IACHR and expert on international rights, Juan Pablo Alban, stated that it is correct that the observation of Patiño is no filed. “… this is not a mistake of the Foreign office and its chancellor, because they were fully aware that if they said they wanted to talk about Emilio Palacio, and the Perez brothers without them being present, the Commission wasn’t going to receive them so they lied and said they were going to talk about a general matter.” (AV)