Ecuador’s Correa Wins Another Libel Case: Are the Latin American Media Being Bullied?

[Zorro]

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa sued the wrong guys. In their 2010 book, El Gran Hermano (The Big Brother), Ecuadorean journalists Juan Carlos Calderón and Christian Zurita write that the President’s older brother, Fabricio Correa, told them that the President knew all about the up to $120 million in federal construction contracts that firms tied to Fabricio were being awarded under a questionable bidding process (so questionable, in fact, that the President was eventually compelled to shut the policy down). Fabricio never denied telling the authors the President was aware of the possibly nepotistic contracts; in fact, Fabricio has since repeated it publicly.

So did an infuriated President Correa sue his chatty gran hermano for libel? Nope. He sued the journalists, for $5 million a piece – even though newspaper reporting by Calderón and Zurita had helped convince him that the controversial bidding process should be scuttled. Still, wouldn’t any judge with half a legal education dismiss the President’s suit? Apparently not in Ecuador. This week, Quito Judge María Mercedes Portilla ordered the journalists to pay the President $1 million each because, she ruled, their book had scarred his “honor, dignity and good name” and had caused him “spiritual damage.” All this despite the fact that the authors themselves don’t claim President Correa knew about his brother’s contracts; rather, “we’re quoting [Fabricio] as saying [the President] knew,” Calderón told TIME in response to Portilla’s decision.



Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/02/10/ecuadors-correa-wins-libel-case-the-latest-episode-in-the-war-on-latin-american-journalists/?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz1m6SHSF1l

[ocpagu]

1. I love how the Latin American press corporations love to play the victim and martyrs of democracy...

...and then, in the first opportunity they have, they are inciting coups d'état, or organising coups themselves, or supporting right-wing dictactorships like they have been doing in Latin America for decades.

Well done Correa.

[Zorro]

2. You applaud Correa for suing reporters that exposed government financial chicanery?

Bucaram would still be in office robbing Ecuador blind if he had the same legal opportunity.

[ocpagu]

4. Bucaram would never had been in office if it wasn't for the support he got from media and press

There's an interesting article about that published in the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society in 1999.

http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=k476488763745460&size=largest

And yes, I applaud Correa. I would sue a newspaper if they accused me of committing a crime without evidences. Why shouldn't he? I really don't get why some people see "The Press" as some enchanted entity above good and evil. Really, it's just business. They don't want Correa out because they believe they will be doing a favor to the Ecuadorian people, they want Correa out because they're paid to lobby for that.

[Zorro]

5. Bucaram's reported antics appealed to the poor and dispossessed

and won him the election over Jaime Nebot, who since has been roundly castigated as the anti-Correa corporate favorite by our resident LatAm savants.

It would be wrong to assert that Bucaram was promoted as the preferred institutional candidate in that election. Bucaram won by promising the moon and acting the fool in public -- which garnered a lot of media attention -- and which the poor found much more entertaining and appealing than the more sober and capable Nebot.

[bemildred]

3. This sort of obnoxious sniveling is so unbecoming. nt