Its worth noting that most of the press issues in Ecuador centre on national politics. The big news organisations are highly partisan (fox-news like), pro-right wing and anti-Correa. Correa won a big law suit against one last year for libel (mentioned in your link). Is this state-enforced intimidation of journalists? I don't think there is an easy answer...
(Not trying to put my own opinion on this, just state some complexities of the issue)
In that case, which was decried by Ecudorean media as a crackdown on press freedom, the journalist wrote Correa "...ordered fire at will and without warning against a hospital full of civilians and innocent people..." and "committed crimes against humanity". Correa later pardoned the defendants. This was in relation to an attempted coup where the police force trapped Correa in a hospital.
Also important to note owners of the media in Ecuador are opposed to Correa since he does not support their interests.
As Chomsky said about this incident: Can you imagine if a coup against the President, supported by the press and executed by the police occurred in the United States? They would be put against a wall and shot.
So while there may be problems with press freedom in Ecuador they should be put in the proper context and investigated more carefully than a "freedom of the press index" can convey.
If he was willing to stay in a country with poor support for human rights then he could have just stayed in the U.S. and kept his head down.
If human rights is really what he's about then I'm not sure how raising Chinese prestige as a refugee while lowering U.S. prestige is really helpful to the overall cause.
He just needed a place where he could do this crucial work before being apprehended. The world seems to see Hong Kong as China, which is wrong and unfortunate -- HK is definitely its own deal.
He said exactly why he came forward in the first interview -- that since he was breaking the law, he owed Americans an explanation. The guy is top notch.
So maybe he could have left a README.nfo in with the leaked documents? He wouldn't have needed to unveil himself that way and still been able to explain himself.
That's true. But this way is much more powerful. He's acting according to his principles, and not sneaking around. He's like the complete opposite of his enemies.
You're right, of course. But I mean he's shown himself. He wants to blow the whistle, and everything he's doing is consistent with that. He's doing everything as much on the up-and-up as possible without putting himself directly into the hands of the criminals he's exposing.
Iceland's Pirate Party lawmaker advised him to go to Cuba.
"If I was his legal counsel I would urge him to look at many countries, not just Iceland," [Jónsdottír] added. “Maybe New Zealand, Ecuador, Cuba—many countries."
I know little about the legal issues, but that strikes me as ill-advised. It's clear that US intelligence agencies aren't concerned by laws, so the power these organizations are able to project in a country is at least as important as its legal framework for extraditions. Snowden may be safe legally in Cuba, but would he be safe extralegally and safe physically? It seems that Hong Kong was chosen specifically as a place that would present more than just legal obstacles for the US.
I'm amazed there's any expectation of ideological commonality with Cuba, a repressive state with near-totalitarian control over information, where connecting to the internet is functionally illegal:
These two are nowhere near the same. Assange leaked information that actually put people's lives in danger. He directly named operatives undercover in places with governments that wouldn't think twice about chopping their heads off. This gives Snowden a bad name, and in my opinion devalues what he has done.
First, those names were put out by a foolish mistake by a Guardian journalist by releasing the encryption key. Second, as far as I know, no one can point to a single person who was harmed or was even put in danger. And there were risk/damage assessments performed by the government so you would expect the fact that someone, without being specific, had been put in danger to be made public.
No can do. The LatAM will change leadership and he'd be screwed sooner or later. Sadly, USA probably pushed him to commit treason and spill the guts on what USA does to China. He's very valuable to the Chinese; USA should have granted him a pardon, if he stopped talking and secured the materials. Bad precedent but...
We are not at war with China, and should not be, and hopefully never will be. As an American who has lived in China for two years, the Chinese people are our friends/family. It's only government psychopaths who seem to want each country to be its own secretive cult whose members hate other cults. Snowden's just providing proof that, despite what it always says, it's actually the US that is belligerent and bellicose, attacking everyone, even supposed allies.
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
http://www.cpj.org/americas/ecuador/