With the political asylum request by Edward Snowden to Ecuador—which hasn’t been approved yet—and Julian Assange’s one-year ordeal in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, there is a lot of self-righteousness coming from the administration of Rafael Correa and its sympathizers about that country being a safe heaven for leakers and transparency types.
In truth, Ecuador is one of the least friendly countries in Latin America in terms of freedom of the press. Just recently the country’s National Assembly approved a law (the so-called “gag law”) that tightens controls on the media, severely limits private ownership of frequencies, and bans the repeated public criticism of authorities individuals. The Inter-American Press Association has called the law “the most serious setback for freedom of the press and of expression in the recent history of Latin America.”
But another, less reported story is Correa’s war against leakers in his own government. Since he came to power in 2007 there have been four well-documented cases where the Ecuadorean government either prosecuted or arrested people who leaked information to the media, revealing alleged instances of corruption in Correa’s government:
Quinto Pazmiño: A former aide to then-finance minister Ricardo Patiño (now the foreign relations minister), Pazmiño leaked videos of a meeting held in Quito in 2007 with representatives of the New York-based firm Abadi & Co. in which Patiño allegedly planned to create uncertainty in the bond market so both sides could speculate and reap financial benefits. Pazmiño claimed to have more incriminating videos of other high-ranking officials in the government. Correa immediately reacted by changing the bylaws of the Radio and Television Law to establish sanctions—including canceling the broadcasting license—for disseminating “clandestine videos or audio recordings.” No videos were broadcast afterwards. Then, the attorney general ordered the arrest of Pazmiño, alleging that his detention was required for the safety of the president. He spent almost a month in jail. Then the president himself sued Pazmiño for libel. A few years later Pazmiño died of a heart-attack in his home. His widow was then killed by hit men in 2011 under mysterious circumstances, supposedly related to past debts.