to the State, requesting the submission of its reply within two months. After being granted an extension, the State submitted its reply in a communication dated June 7, 2012, which was forwarded to the petitioners. The petitioners presented additional observations on July 25, 2012, which was forwarded to the State on July 31, 2012. On July 24 and September 19, 2012, the State submitted its new observations, which were duly forwarded to the petitioners. - Precautionary measures 6. On February 21, 2012, the IACHR decided to grant precautionary measures No. 406-11 on behalf of Emilio Palacio, Carlos Nicolás Pérez Lapentti, Carlos Pérez Barriga, and César Pérez Barriga. On February 29, 2012, the beneficiaries requested that the precautionary measures be lifted, in view of the fact that the underlying grounds of immediate urgency had ceased to exist. On March 9, 2012, the IACHR lifted the precautionary measures and shelved the case file. III. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES A. Position of the petitioners 7. The petitioners stated that on February 6, 2011, an article was published in the newspaper El Universo entitled "No a las mentiras" ["No to Lies"], written and signed by journalist Emilio Palacio Urrutia.1 The petition states that, in that article, the journalist “expressed his opinion regarding the events that took place on September 30, 2010 in Ecuador, in relation to the government’s actions when members of the National Police of Ecuador started a protest in their barracks, staged a walk-out, blocked highways, and blocked the entrance to Parliament in Quito; he also expressed his critical opinion of the subsequent actions and reactions of the President of the Republic with respect to those events.” 8. They indicated that, because of that article, on March 21, 2011 Rafael Correa Delgado, President of the Republic of Ecuador, filed a private criminal complaint before the Supervisory Criminal Judge of Guayas [Supervisory Criminal Judge of Guayas] alleging the offense of serious criminal defamation of an 1 The petition indicates that the text of the column published is as follows: “This week, for the second time, the Dictatorship reported through one of its spokespersons that the Dictator is considering the possibility of forgiving the criminals who rose up on September 30, and therefore is considering a pardon. I do not know whether the proposal includes me (according to the dictatorial broadcasts, I was one of the instigators of the coup); but if so, I reject it. I understand that the Dictator (a devout Christian, a man of peace) never misses an opportunity to pardon criminals. He pardoned the drug trafficking mules, he showed pity toward the murderers being held at the Litoral Penitentiary, he asked citizens to let themselves be robbed so there wouldn’t be any victims, he cultivated a great friendship with the squatters and made them legislators until they betrayed him. But Ecuador is a secular State where it is not allowed to use faith as a legal basis for exempting criminals from the payment of their debts. If I committed a crime, I demand that it be proven; otherwise, I expect not a judicial pardon, but rather the proper apologies. What is really happening is that the Dictator finally understood (or his lawyers made him understand) that he has no way to demonstrate the supposed crime of September 30, since it was all the product of an improvised script, in the midst of all the panic, to conceal the Dictator’s irresponsibility of going into a barracks in revolt, to open his shirt and shout for them to kill him, just like professional wrestler putting on his show in a circus tent in some forgotten little town. At this point, all of the “evidence” against the “coup conspirators” has fallen apart: The Dictator acknowledges that the terrible idea of going to the Quito Regiment and entering by force was his. But at the time, no one was able to prepare for his assassination because no one was expecting him. The Dictator swears that the former director of the Police Hospital locked the doors to keep him out. But there was no conspiracy there either because they did not even want to see his face. The bullets that killed the police officers disappeared—not from Fidel Araujo’s office but rather from premises guarded by forces loyal to the Dictatorship. To show that he was not wearing a bulletproof vest on September 30, Araujo put one on in front of his judges and then donned the same T-shirt he had been wearing that day. His accusers had to blush at the palpable demonstration that the bulletproof vests cannot simply be concealed. I could go on, but space does not allow me to. Nevertheless, now that the Dictator understands that he should step back with his ghost story, I offer him a way out: he should pursue amnesty in the National Assembly rather than a pardon. Amnesty is not a pardon; it is legal forgetting. If passed, it would mean that society reached the conclusion that too many stupid mistakes were committed on September 30, on both sides, and that it would be unfair to condemn some and reward others. Why was the Dictator able to propose amnesty for the “big-wigs” Gustavo Noboa and Alberto Dahik, whereas he wants to pardon the “nobody” police officers? The Dictator should recall, finally—and this is very important—that with a pardon, a new president—perhaps an enemy of his—could have him brought before a criminal court in the future for having ordered fire discretionarily, without advance notice, on a hospital full of civilians and innocent people. Crimes against humanity, do not forget, are not subject to any statute of limitations.” 2