Airing ‘Simpsons’ leads to 3-month suspension

QUITO, Ecuador – As Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa continues the reforms he promised when re-elected in April as part of the Revolucion Ciudadana (Citizen’s Revolution), lingering questions remain about his very recent agglomeration of power.

During the past week, Correa has been chastised for what some commentators are calling outright censorship of television and radio network TeleAmazonas.

Correa threatened TeleAmazonas, a national broadcaster within Ecuador, with closure for airing Fox’s “The Simpsons” in addition to other violations such as showing graphic images of bullfights and reporting “false” stories. America’s favorite TV family – and longest-running animated program, sitcom and primetime entertainment program in the United States – is broadcast in Ecuador during primetime, which Correa says detrimentally affects both children and adolescents.

TeleAmazonas owner Fidel Egas, a wealthy Ecuadorian businessman, has been strongly critical of the current leftist government and its plans for change within the country, which include aligning with more socialist countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

For its first violation, the broadcast of the Ambato Bullfight Festival, TeleAmazonas was fined $20 – a nominal fee when considering TeleAmazonas grosses millions of dollars in advertising and licensing revenue annually.

The second, still-pending violation was for airing “The Simpsons,” which will result in a 90-day suspension of the channel. If Correa is successful in fighting TeleAmazonas, the government could take away the channel’s access to its radio and television frequencies, thus definitively closing the station.

TeleAmazonas has been on the air since February 1974 and is one of the most widely available channels within Ecuador.

This is not Correa’s first intrusion into the media world. In 2007, he filed a lawsuit against a popular daily newspaper, La Hora, claiming libel. This past year, he threw the editor of El Universo out of a press conference for asking questions related to his personal life. Correa has also created a new state-run television station, Ecuador TV, and turned over control of the newspaper El Telegrafo to the state.

“Correa is overstepping his given powers to try and direct popular opinion his direction,” said Alexandra Saa, a former neighbor of Correa in 2007 when Correa was the Ecuador economic minister. “There are problems with freedom of the press in all parts of the world, but they’re becoming worse in Ecuador.”

Saa voted for Correa back in 2007, but she claims the president is becoming too autocratic.

“Even Barack Obama agrees that Correa is taking away freedom of the press.”

Indeed, U.S. President Obama made clear in a phone call to Correa last week that he supports a “free and independent” press within Ecuador, according to Reuters reports.

But other Ecuadorians are satisfied with the job Correa is doing, even in spite of these recent problems with the press. Correa was the first president to win an election without a runoff in more than 30 years, and he is the first to survive more than one term in the past 15 years.

The TeleAmazonas case remains in court as of press time, and the future of the press in Ecuador is undoubtedly tied to the pending result.