Rafael Correa's battle against the press

American journalists are very lucky to exercise their profession freely. In other countries, citizen-critic of government is not allowed. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, has his own strategy to impede journalism's function of exposing public officials' conduct. I recently studied some of the most important legal cases relating freedom of speech in the United States and learnt that early in 1964, in the case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court held that public official plaintiffs had to prove actual malice in order to recover damages in a libel case. This way, the Court strenghtened a robust debate on the government's actions.

Here is a link to a story that summarizes Correa´s battle against free press. One of his habits is using defamation suits as a self-censorship method.