Miami (October 14, 2009).— An international delegation from the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) will be in Ecuador this Thursday and Friday to look into setbacks to press freedom in the South American country. Its conclusions will be reviewed and discussed at the organization’s upcoming General Assembly in Buenos Aires, Argentina, early next month.
Tense relations between the government of President Rafael Correa and news media and discussion of the proposed Communication Law will be the main focus of the IAPA delegation, made up of 1st Vice President Gonzalo Marroquín, editor of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Prensa Libre, former president Edward Seaton, of The Manhattan Mercury, Kansas, IAPA Press Institute President Gustavo Mohme, of La República, Lima, Peru, Executive Director Julio E. Muñoz and Press Freedom Director Ricardo Trotti.
This will be the organization’s fifth mission to observe press freedom so far this year –previously missions have visited Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
The delegation, invited by the president's office through Fernando Alvarado, Ecuador’s Communication Secretary, will also hold meetings with governing party Congresswoman Betty Carrillo, chair of the National Assembly Communication Standing Committee, and other legislators who are currently studying four draft bills for a new Communications Law.
Meetings are also scheduled with representatives of print and broadcast news media, members of the National Union of Journalists (UNP), the Ecuadorean Association of Newspaper Publishers (AEDEP), the International Center of Communication Higher Studies for Latin America (CIESPAL), and the Andean Foundation for the Observation and Study of Media (Fundamedios), and other groups and leading figures in Ecuador.
At the end of the two-day visit the IAPA delegation plans to hold a press conference on its finding.
