SIP Couldn’t Meet Neither With Assembly Members Nor With The Government

Gonzalo Marroquin, president of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), came to Ecuador over the weekend with other members of the IAPA to have a meeting with President Rafael Correa, however, he received no response since according to the Government, the IAPA has described the President as a dictator. “I never said that there’s a dictatorial regime in Ecuador, but authoritarian,” said the head of the IAPA.The IAPA was scheduled to attend the National Assembly, but the president of the Communication Commission, Mauro Andino (PAIS), suspended the meeting yesterday in which he was expected to talk to Marroquín.

It was not until yesterday that Marroquin could have the first meeting with state authorities (the Ombudsman, Fernando Gutierrez) to discuss the formation of the Council Regulation establishing the Communication Law, which is a debate topic in the National Assembly.

“We talked about the media law. The state must guarantee the widest freedom of expression and never restricting it, (but) we have shared some views, especially the Council Regulation, we disagree there,” said Marroquin.

According Marroquin, Correa wants to control information through the management of public media. “There’s an old phrase that says that whoever has information has power. The Government … is the largest media owner, which is dangerous because it doesn’t promote diversity of ideas, the free flow of information, and all that information is walking under the control of a sector,·” he said.

Source: El Universo Newspaper