Journalist accuses Ecuador’s Correa of orchestrating his prosecution on slander charges

Journalist: Ecuador’s Correa targeting critics

QUITO, Ecuador — A journalist facing a 3-year prison sentence for defamation accused Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on Tuesday of orchestrating his prosecution as a warning that critics of the government will be severely punished.

Emilio Palacio, an editorial writer for the newspaper El Universo, claimed Correa was behind a judge’s decision last week to convict him of breaking the law by insulting the head of the Ecuador’s state-run National Financial Corp.

“He’s ordering them to destroy me,” Palacio told The Associated Press. He argued Correa is using the case as an example of what can happen to journalists who criticize the government. “That’s the message that he wants to send out.”

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group that campaigns for press freedoms, has condemned Palacio’s sentence, saying it “seems disproportionate and inopportune.” The Inter American Press Association has expressed concerns that Correa wants to muzzle critical media in much the same way as President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Correa vehemently disputes that he aims to silence his critics.

Palacio denied he did anything illegal in writing an editorial that poked fun at agency head Camilo Saman for supposedly sending bodyguards to the newspaper to complain about a news story. While a group of people did show up objecting to the article, Saman’s guards were not among them.

Saman’s lawyer, Gutemberg Vera, denied his client’s accusations against Palacio were aimed at intimidating the media.

“It’s not against freedom of expression,” Vera told the Ecuavisa television channel. He said Saman felt “insulted and offended” by Palacio’s editorial last August.

Saman, a close ally of Correa, had urged a maximum 6-year sentence for Palacio, saying the journalist has repeatedly slandered him.

Palacio has appealed his conviction and is not in jail.

Hernan Reyes, a professor at Ecuador’s Universidad Andina, said both Correa and his critics are becoming increasingly aggressive amid tensions between the government and the nation’s independent media.

“There’s an excessively hostile discourse from the president … and there are abuses and lack of professionalism among journalists,” Reyes said. “Many media outlets have turned into political actors.”

(This version CORRECTS name of newspaper to El Universo instead of El Universal.)