President Rafael Correa of Ecuador is leading a relentless campaign against free speech, harassing his critics, forcing independent broadcasters off the air and hijacking the nation’s courts in his bid to bankrupt the country’s largest newspaper.

After Emilio Palacio, the editorial page editor of El Universo, wrote a column accusing Mr. Correa of ordering the army to open fire on a hospital during a police protest, Mr. Correa filed a criminal suit against the editor and three of the paper’s directors, claiming “aggravated defamation of a public official.”

Despite outrageous irregularities - the case was finally decided by a “temporary magistrate” who, according to an independent forensic analysis, may have outsourced the job of writing the decision to the president’s lawyer - an appeals court confirmed a $40 million award for the president, plus three-year sentences for the directors and Mr. Palacio. A final appeal by the directors is expected to be heard on Wednesday. Mr. Palacio has run out of appeals.

Looking forward to next year’s presidential elections, in which he is likely to run, Mr. Correa has also pushed through a law that would forbid the news media from “either directly or indirectly promoting any given candidate, proposal, options, electoral preferences or political thesis, through articles, specials or any other form of message.”

Mr. Correa’s assault on the press has rightly drawn criticism from the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression at the Organization of American States. Now he is trying to silence the rapporteur. Last month, his government presented the O.A.S. with recommendations to “improve” the special rapporteur, by reducing its financing, limiting the scope of its annual reports and imposing a code of conduct to restrict its independence.

The United States and others only belatedly recognized what Mr. Correa was up to. In December, the O.A.S. adopted a broader final report on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights monitoring system that included some of the recommendations. When the O.A.S. ambassadors meet in Washington this week, they should do all they can - there is room to maneuver - to protect the financing and the voice of the rapporteur. Mr. Correa, predictably, couches his moves in populist rhetoric. “When we are liberating our states from the de facto powers that always dominated them - like the power of information - these de facto powers accuse us,” he said in a speech before Latin-American leaders in December. There is no doubt that his assault on a free press is an assault on democracy.

Latin America has a bitter history of authoritarian rule. It has struggled hard to get beyond those days. All of the hemisphere’s democratic leaders, including President Obama, need to push back against Mr. Correa.

Source: InteramericanSecurityWatch.com