Preview of Life Under Trump: Ecuador Journalist Gets 2 Years in Jail for Daring to Criticize
You may have seen this as a recurring bit on Jon Oliver’s show; but it has lost all its humor in the past year.
Ecuador’s President Correa and his cronies passed a “Law of Communications” that basically is what Trump is asking for. It makes it a crime to say anything negative about a politician, and sets up kangaroo courts where the sentence is imposed pretty much without the accused really being allowed to post a defence.
In the most recent use of this law to stifle free speech, a corrupt politician was called out during a radio interview for all the usual corrupt sins. He turned around and used the new restrictive law to go after the journalist for daring to point this out.
The result was a punitive fine, and then on top of that, a 2-year prison sentence.
Another journalist was driven into bankruptcy with a $140,000 fine. He dared to report on the sweetheart deals that Correa and his cronies were doing to loot billions of oil revenues and pension funds.
This is what the future looks like, if Trump wins. His supporters will cheer this on. A cowed, spineless congress will pass it. You’ve probably seen the reports that even the American Bar Association - an association of HIGH POWERED LAWYERS - feared to say anything negative about Trump.
And websites like this one will either be sued out of existence - or the site owner (and that’s you, Charles) will be thrown in jail.
Check out some of the other stories on Fundamedios, if you read Spanish. People who “show disrespect to political figures” and who “traffic in calumny” are also thrown in jail - and that includes people who make snarky comments on the internet.