The IAPA denounces an “unusual” government prosecution against seven media

The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) denounced the persecution of the Ecuadorian press by the government of Rafael Correa for not echoing a publication of the Argentine magazine Pagina 12 against former presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso.

IAPA President Matt Sanders said that this is an “unusual case” of the use of the Organic Law of Communication in Ecuador to “punish a media for an omission.” Although Correa “invokes the subject of prior censorship, what we are seeing is how the right of the media to their freedom of editorial criteria is systematically violated,” added Sanders

Seven media were sued by the Citizen Observatory for a Quality Communication before the Superintendence of Communication for alleged censorship for not having echoed the news magazine Pagina 12 of Buenos Aires published about Guillermo Lasso, who was accused of owning offshore companies and other financial irregularities by that media.

The argument for the claim was that the seven media omitted to publish information considered to be of public interest within the framework of the electoral process the country was going through at that time.