Ecuador

WHEREAS The National Assembly is rushing to issue the Communication Law, in accordance with that which was sratified in the popular consultation on May 7, 2011 WHEREAS The Judiciary has issued decisions that violate the principles of freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Political Constitution and international treaties WHEREAS The Presidency of the Republic has made administrative decisions that restrict the free access that citizens must have to public information, as established in the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information WHEREAS The President of the Republic and the National Secretariat of Communication continue their campaigns of undermining journalists and independent media WHEREAS The Ecuadorian government is leading an international campaign to reform the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which would reduce the operational and economic independence of the Special Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression WHEREAS Principle V of the Declaration of Chapultepec establishes “Prior censorship, restrictions on the circulation of the media or dissemination of their reports, forced publication of information, the imposition of obstacles to the free flow of news, and restrictions on the activities and movements of journalists directly contradict freedom of the press.” THE MID-YEAR MEETING OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to exhort the president of the National Assembly to observe international treaties and the expressed mandate of the popular consultation of May 7, 2011 when composing the new Communication Law to impress upon the president of the National Court of Justice the need for judges to comply with the existing legal framework in regard to measures such as constitutional support to impress upon the President of the Republic the need to seek paths to dialog with sectors of journalism and independent press, thus minimizing the unnecessary confrontation and attacks coming from the executive office to ask the President of the Republic to lift the existing prohibition so that public employees may deliver information to any citizen who seeks it, without considering his or her political condition, since such is the demand of the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information to work tirelessly with the Organization of American States to prevent the project which will weaken the Special Rapporteuship for Freedom of Expression from succeeding.