Ecuador Makes List of Countries Where Press Freedom Has Declined
Ecuador is the only Latin American country featured on the Committee to Project Journalists’ (CPJ) annual Risk List. CPJ explains:
The list is based on the expertise of CPJ staff, but also takes into account press freedom indicators such as journalist fatalities and imprisonments, restrictive legislation, state censorship, impunity in anti-press attacks, and journalists driven into exile. Those places on the Risk List are not the worst press freedom offenders, but rather spots where CPJ documented the most significant deterioration of the media climate during 2013.
Samantha Bagden from the Journalism the Americas Blog gives more context:
The Ecuadorian National Assembly approved the new law intended to regulate editorial content in June. The law gives authorities the right to impose arbitrary sanctions and censor the press and it’s enforced by a state watchdog loyal to President Rafael Correa.
[…]
In its report, CPJ quoted Monica Almeida, editor at Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo, saying that the atmosphere is much worse because of the law.
“Before, there was a level of control by the government … but they did not have this legal framework like the Communications Law which allows them to do many things in their favor.”
1 comment
This article is completely off target. Ecuador actually improved in the RSF 2014 Index and moved up 25 spots, as opposed to, for example, the United States that dropped 13 spots. In the preliminary Index report, RSF said that one of the factors for Ecuador’s improvement is the new communications law that CPJ has so vehemently opposed even before its creation. CPJ has taken a political stance against not only Ecuador, but against all progressive governments in Latin America. We must ask if CPJ defends journalists or it is simply playing politics and defending the conservative Latin America media moguls who help finance it?