Ecuador’s President Used Millions Of Dollars Of Public Funds To Censor Critical Online Videos
The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, used millions of dollars from his country’s intelligence budget to hire a foreign company to remove a documentary and other information critical of him or his wife from the internet, leaked documents show.
The records, seen by BuzzFeed News, show that at least one contract, for just under $4.7 million, was signed with a Mexican company that then successfully removed material from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and Dailymotion. Videos removed by the company, which filed weekly reports on successful deletions, included a critical documentary by filmmaker Santiago Villa, an electoral broadcast from a rival accusing Correa of behaving like a dictator, a video from a former aide to Correa’s wife alleging persecution, and a report of a jailbreak from Ecuador’s highest-security prison.
The new information adds to mounting international concern about censorship and press freedom under Correa. It also raises questions as to whether the Ecuadorian intelligence agency’s use of contractors to monitor and remove criticisms violates free expression and privacy protections in the country’s constitution. Earlier this month the last remaining free expression charity in Ecuador was ordered by the government to close down, despite recording more than 600 attacks against journalists in four years. Amnesty International at the time accused Correa, who has led Ecuador since 2007, of restricting “core human rights of freedoms of assembly, association and expression in Ecuador”.
The country, which has provided asylum in its London embassy to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange since 2012, has also been criticised for its surveillance practices, including a bulk system to intercept and potentially modify text messages.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/ecuadors-president-used-millions-of-dollars-of-public-funds?utm_term=.wqVdN01xAR#.vt30qr7Ema
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