Death Threats Against Ecuadorian Journalists Raise New Concerns Over Press Safety

Last updated: 21 September 2026

@Yuri CORTEZ/AFP

On February 26, 2026, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published a report describing a sharp increase in death threats against journalists in Ecuador and linking that surge to a broader deterioration in press freedom. The article says four cases were documented between January and February 2026, compared with three such threats recorded by an RSF partner during the whole of 2025. It presents the trend as evidence that reporters working on corruption, criminal networks, and other sensitive local issues are facing a more dangerous environment, while state institutions are doing too little to protect them.

The report frames the situation not as a series of isolated incidents, but as part of a wider pattern in which intimidation, disinformation, and official restrictions are combining to narrow the space for independent reporting. The threats described in the article took different forms, including WhatsApp audio messages, text messages, direct warnings, and threats against family members. In several cases, the journalists’ work was immediately affected: some reduced their public activity, some were forced to relocate, and at least one cancelled an interview altogether after being threatened.

One of the cases detailed in the report concerns freelance journalist Jonathan David Quezada Castillo, who received death threats on February 7, 2026 in Ecuador’s highlands region. According to the article, the threats were tied to social media posts about complaints from residents in Guaranda, in the province of Bolívar, on a Facebook page that the journalist says he neither created nor administered. The report presents the case as an example of how disinformation can be used to provoke or justify serious threats against reporters. In other words, the danger did not arise only from the subject of the reporting itself, but also from false attribution and manipulated information that made the journalist appear responsible for content he denied producing.

The same case also shows how threats can escalate quickly once a complaint is filed. In his submissions to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Quezada Castillo said he first received a threatening WhatsApp audio message from a number with a Colombian country code. After making an initial complaint, he reportedly received another death threat directed both at him and his family. The article notes that investigative proceedings were recently initiated in the case. It also recalls that the journalist had previously faced threats in 2024, suggesting that this latest incident did not emerge in a vacuum but followed an earlier pattern of intimidation.

A second case highlighted in the article involves Jonathan Bonifaz, director of the digital outlet Llamingo EC, who received a death threat by WhatsApp on January 23, 2026. The report says the threat came after he published information about criminal groups operating in Ecuador’s northern border area. According to the account provided, sources close to the journalist warned him that two individuals had been sent to Quito to kill him in retaliation for his work. This alleged warning transformed the threat from an abstract message into a more immediate and operational fear, implying that violence could follow quickly unless he changed his circumstances.

The consequences for Bonifaz were severe. The article says he was forced to relocate and keep his whereabouts confidential, making it extremely difficult for him to continue reporting in a territory already marked by organized crime and cross-border violence. Psychological support was reportedly provided by Periodistas Sin Cadenas, a local organization partnered with the international group. At the same time, the report points to a structural problem in Ecuador’s protection system: because official safety mechanisms depend heavily on location-based logistics, they can be hard to implement when a journalist has to hide his whereabouts in order to stay alive. This means the very act of self-protection can make formal protection harder to deliver.

Another case described in the article concerns Joffre Paredes Ronquillo, a journalist and presenter on the program Sin Anestesia on the digital channel KLN. On January 6, 2026, he received a threatening text message on his phone stating that he was being watched and threatening both him and his family. The message followed his reporting on alleged misconduct in land management in La Libertad, a city in Ecuador’s coastal region. This detail is significant because it shows that threats are not limited to journalists covering organized crime. Reporting on local governance, land issues, and possible municipal misconduct can also trigger retaliation, particularly in environments where economic and political interests are closely tied.

In this case, the response from authorities appears to have been somewhat more developed. The journalist reported the incident to prosecutors and was placed under a protection scheme that included a panic button, police escort when leaving his home, and daily police patrols outside his residence. Yet the article makes clear that even these measures did not fully solve the problem. His work was immediately constrained: he reduced the amount of time he spent in public and limited his reporting. This illustrates one of the report’s key arguments — even when the state responds, the damage may already be done if threats are strong enough to narrow a journalist’s ability to work freely.

The fourth case mentioned in the report involves Fernando Muñoz, a journalist at Radio Salinas, who was threatened with death in person and via WhatsApp on January 15, 2026. The warning told him not to broadcast an interview with an activist about alleged corruption in land sales in the city of Salinas, also in the Santa Elena region. According to the article, the threats achieved their aim: the interview was cancelled. That detail gives the case particular importance because it shows direct and measurable self-censorship. The intimidation did not merely frighten a journalist; it succeeded in stopping potentially important information from reaching the public.

The report notes that Muñoz informed the protection mechanism but chose not to file a legal complaint and instead kept a low profile. This, the article says, is a common reaction among threatened journalists, who often fear that formal reporting may increase their risk and who may not trust state institutions to protect them effectively. That observation adds a broader systemic dimension to the story. Threats become even more powerful when victims doubt that official complaints will bring real safety. In such conditions, silence, withdrawal, and low visibility can appear more rational than pursuing justice, even though that outcome ultimately favors the perpetrators.

Taken together, the four cases point to several recurring patterns. First, the threats often followed reporting on matters of clear public interest, including criminal groups, local corruption, and land management. Second, family members were sometimes included in the intimidation, expanding the emotional and practical pressure on the journalists. Third, the impact on reporting was immediate: relocation, restricted movement, reduced public presence, and cancelled coverage all appear in the accounts. These common features suggest that the threats are functioning not only as expressions of anger, but as deliberate tools for blocking scrutiny and limiting what local audiences are allowed to know.

The article also places these incidents in a larger political and institutional context by linking them to new restrictions on media access. It says that on January 28, 2026, Ecuador’s Armed Forces issued an internal document establishing rules to determine which journalists and media outlets would be allowed to cover official events. According to the report, the criteria included an outlet’s editorial line and past publications, and the rules allowed exclusion of outlets that, in the military’s view, “damage” the institution’s image. Although the measure was later said not to be in force, the article argues that its drafting and announcement still reveal an official willingness to restrict, rather than safeguard, independent reporting.

This link between physical threats and administrative restrictions is one of the most important themes in the story. The article suggests that journalists in Ecuador are not dealing with only one form of pressure. On one side there are criminal or private actors using threats to silence investigations. On the other, there are state institutions considering rules that could filter access to official information according to editorial stance. When both tendencies appear at the same time, the effect on press freedom can be cumulative. Reporters may face danger from those exposed by their work, while also confronting formal barriers to obtaining the information they need from public authorities.

The report also underscores the broader public consequences of this environment. When journalists self-censor, flee their reporting areas, or cancel interviews, the damage is not limited to their personal safety or professional autonomy. Local communities lose access to reporting on corruption, illegal economies, and abuse of power. In the case of the cancelled interview in Salinas, the article explicitly notes that the local audience’s right to be informed was restricted. This makes the issue not only one of media labor conditions, but of democratic accountability. Threats against journalists weaken the public’s ability to understand what is happening in their own municipalities and regions.

Another notable aspect of the report is its focus on local reporting rather than only national politics. The journalists targeted were working on issues rooted in specific places: Guaranda, La Libertad, Salinas, and the northern border region. This geographic detail matters because it shows that the most acute risks may be concentrated outside the capital and outside the biggest national debates. Local reporters often cover the exact subjects most likely to provoke retaliation — land disputes, corruption, trafficking, and criminal structures that have immediate territorial influence. At the same time, they may have fewer institutional resources, less visibility, and more limited access to sustained protection. The picture that emerges is one in which local journalism is both essential and especially exposed.

The article ultimately presents the current moment as a warning sign for Ecuador’s press climate. Four cases in two months, following only three recorded over the whole previous year by a partner organization, suggest a notable acceleration. The combination of intimidation, self-censorship, relocation, family targeting, and restricted access to official coverage creates a hostile environment in which journalism can continue only at growing personal cost. The report therefore argues for stronger protection systems and more serious investigations, including forensic analysis of messages, recordings, and phone numbers, in order to identify and punish those responsible.

Conclusion

The article presents the recent threats in Ecuador as more than isolated cases of intimidation. It shows how violence, fear, disinformation, and institutional restrictions can reinforce one another, narrowing the space for local reporting on crime, corruption, and public affairs.

More broadly, the story draws attention to a wider press freedom problem: when journalists must relocate, reduce coverage, or cancel reporting to stay safe, the public also loses access to essential information. In that context, the issue is not only the safety of individual reporters, but the ability of communities to remain informed in an increasingly hostile environment.