First up, some excellent video from this past week, when Julian Assange interviewed the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, for his RT/Wikileaks talk show:
And then, germane to the subjects touched on in the Assange interview, this item from Contrainjerencia:
The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, assured today that in his country, human rights are respected, and this fact was recognized this week in the headquarters of the United Nations, in Geneva.
“Ecuador was not only applauded, we received a standing ovation,” said Correa in reference to the recent session of the UN human rights counsel during a weekly report, broadcast on Saturday.
The president condemned the publication of a supposed lack of free expression and allusion to criminalization of social protest by a sector of the Ecuadorian private media.
“Now they don’t know what to say, they keep doing the same ridiculous thing. The nation knows what’s changing in this country, and history will know it too, in case any doubt remains. We have to put things clearly in their proper place and recognize what this process of Citizen Revolution is, and what is the role of certain corrupt media,” Correa commented.
Correa affirmed that while the country is making gains in freedom and equal opportunities and real political rights for all Ecuadorians, oligarchic groups are trying to use citizens in service of their own privileges and interests.
The president pointed out that in certain Ecuadorian news outlets, it was repeatedly printed in large letters that there is no freedom of expression, in an attempt to spread that notion to the rest of the world.
“Thank God nobody believes them now, because our country received an ovation in Geneva for its advances in human rights,” Correa said.
Correa revealed that the data presented in Switzerland were corroborated and in many instances gathered by those same international organizations.
[…]
Vice-president Lenín Moreno, who presided over the official delegation to the UN forum, revealed that the “trophies” of his country in this battle are a reduction of unemployment to 4.2 percent, and of underemployment to 44 percent, the lowest figures ever registered in Ecuador’s history, along with other social advances.
Translation mine.
Advances in employment and human rights…literacy, health, welfare…a standing ovation in the UN. And NO CENSORSHIP, as evidenced by the irony of big headlines claiming there’s no freedom of expression! Strange achievements indeed for a “dictator” that the elites, private media and US embassy are trying to overthrow. Nothing like the tyranny of a good example!
