president, the journalist accuses him, clearly and precisely, that, deprived of liberty, he gave the order to shoot against a hospital and that with that he committed a crime against humanity, for which he advises him to request an amnesty and not to decree a pardon, in order to achieve his own impunity in the future. In addition to qualifying the president's intervention as criminal and typical of a crime against humanity, he holds him responsible for his own kidnapping and life-threatening risk, since he considers his conduct reckless, implying that it was almost bravado. 133. In order to adequately gauge the seriousness of the last of these accusations, prior knowledge of a certain local political tradition in the face of coups d'état is necessary. Like all our countries, Ecuador has some characteristics that are typical of its political culture, among which it is highlighted that, in democratic governments, attempted coups and other serious disturbances of public order have historically always been disarmed with direct, personal intervention by the presidents themselves, as evidenced throughout its history of the last century by the conduct of the one who marked the country's politics for decades, with five presidential terms, only managing to normally complete one without being overthrown by a coup d’etat. 35 134. The disqualification of the constitutional president’s conduct in defense precisely of the constitutional order, through the accusation of a crime against humanity and his victimization and threat to life as a result of conduct that is classified as clumsy and reckless, but that is culturally appropriate according to the national historical experience, is implicitly underestimating the coup attempt itself, that is, minimizing the attempt to alter the institutionality, the seriousness and violence of the armed rebellion. 135. It is clear that in this case it is not a question of a simple ordinary slander in which only the values of the right to exercise journalistic criticism and the honor of the official must be weighed, but rather that also relevant in the weighing is the disqualification of the role of the executive in defense of the constitutional order and the minimization or underestimation of an armed rebellion. 136. In these circumstances and in this case, another value must also be weighed, which is that of the duty of the democratic authorities to defend the constitutional order in the face of an attempted coup d'état carried out with weapons provided by the State itself. 137. It cannot be considered that this slander responded to a public interest objective, when it was clearly intended to disqualify a State executive and underestimate the seriousness of the threat against which it acted. 138. I insist that it is not just a matter of evaluating and weighing the right to freedom of information that must be guaranteed as necessary to control the proper functioning of an administration, against the right to honor of an official who, as was said, yields before the former. Rather they tried to manipulate that freedom to minimize a rebellion with a personal attack on the holder of a State power and discredit his intervention in the event. The value that is added to the weighting is the preservation of the constitutional order and the image of the democratic power of the State in its defense in a serious emergency situation. 139. The Commission itself, always extremely careful of the constitutional and international right to criticism and journalistic allegation, in its Annual Report of 2018, demands that the punishability of these crimes be limited solely and exclusively to exceptional circumstances in which there is an evident threat and direct anarchic 35 Cfr. Robert Norris, ‘El gran ausente’. Biography of Velasco Ibarra, Quito, 2005. 21