President Correa: The 40 million compensation would be used to capitalize “El Universo”

Rafael Correa and Carlos Perez Barriga

After the failed appeal hearing in the proceedings against the directors of El Universo Newspaper and its former opinion editor, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa Delgado reiterated to the journalists and employees of the Newspaper that regardless of the outcome of the process, their jobs are guaranteed.

Correa asked the journalists of the newspaper to realize what is happening in order to notice that he is not against them but some slanderous liars.

He also said he would provide the newspaper with the 40 million dollar compensation that would be given to him in order to capitalize it in case they may face liquidity problems following the outcome of this process.

“We guarantee your job, whatever the outcome of this process. I once said that if the Newspaper goes undercapitalized or if it is in danger of bankruptcy, the same money would be used in order to capitalize it instead of giving it (…) to Yasuní, and (…) the shareholders would be the newspaper workers,” he reiterated.

He said that employees of El Universo must be the first to review this case in order to aks for corrections. “But understand why this struggle is about. It is a struggle against lies, abuse (…) The enemy of journalism and freedom of speech is not us, but the bad journalists and the corrupt press,” he said.

(BG)