María Auxiliadora Patiño Herdoiza behind the attack of ElEstado.Net, is involved in the INA Papers case

What I expressed on Twitter publicly wasn’t out of anger nor were they words written fruit of the imposition of feelings above reason. After all I waited more than 20 hours to announce part of what has happened because I didn’t want to do it by solely having weak suspicions, it is necessary that time goes by so that they turn into solid facts.

I have put the bombshell in the title for two reasons. The first is that I reject as a reader of information, that the fundamental piece of information from the news should be used as bait to keep the visitors on the web for as long as possible, and the second is to calm the understandable urge of knowing who it was, thus being able to face the text with the most attention possible.

This past 23rd July the website EIEstado.Net went down, our mail service also did so, contracted with the same hosting service. Upon checking the email which we use to communicate with the owners of the servers in which our website was in at that moment, I saw that in the inbox they had sent us an email with the subject “Oh no! Your site has been suspended”, and in the body of the message was the reason: “abuse”. Without specifying which type of abuse.

I responded quickly as the hosting website says that they only suspend immediately, without previous warning, how they had just done to us, websites that commit the worst possible illegal activities. After waiting 20 hours, because the personnel of the technical support that attended me didn’t have the sufficient authority to tell me the reason for the ban, I was sent a screenshot that was conveniently cropped in order to hide the name of whom reported the abuse.

What could be seen was the reason for the ban: a photo of some buildings in Alicante. After insisting, they finally sent me a full report in which it is proved that it was María Auxiliadora Patiño Herdoiza who reported the abuse. Her justification was literally this one: “your user publishes private data such as my family address in Ecuador, without authorization or consent”.

I ask you to please pay attention to the fact that it doesn’t refer to the text of the news but rather to an image which had nothing written on it, not even on the footer of the image. The address did not appear anywhere. And the photo if anything is of Alicante, Spain, not Ecuador as stated in the accusation by María Auxiliadora Patiño Herdoiza! However our previous hosting web accepted it and banned us permanently.

They did it by breaking their own rules, because they didn’t let us know 30 days in advance, as is obligatory, and this can be seen on the report that they passed onto us. That is to say, they didn’t give us the opportunity to avoid shutting down EIEstado.Net. They didn’t allow us, once the site was shut down, to commkt ourselves to take down the image to avoid the permanent ban. Neither did they want to give us a security copy.

With this information we can affirm that María Auxiliadora Patiño Herdoiza’s intention was to prevent us from being able to recover the contents of the website, losing nearly a year and a half’s worth of work would have truly been devastating for the team’s morale, but we wouldn’t have abandoned the project as a consequence, much more is needed for us to do so. Luckily we make copies for security reasons regularly. We have only lost posts of some days before the attack.

María Auxiliadora Patiño Herdoiza is the administrator of INA investment, an offshore company, that her family shares with Lenín Moreno’s family, the president also participates in said company. With tax addresses in tax havens and without productive activity, supposes a flagrant illegal act in Ecuador, whose legislation doesn’t allow those with public service positions to participate in these kinds of economic activities. Lenín Moreno would be benefitting from luxury furniture and a luxurious apartment in Alicante.

Therefore, one of Lenín Moreno’s front men, turned to the website of our old hosting to report us and that way ban our account. We don’t know how he made the owners of the server agree, as the justification (revealing the postal address of their family in Ecuador) didn’t appear in the reported photo.

They have silenced us for 6 days. They have given us more visibility and will to work. I guarantee that we will not move our publishing house one millilitre. We will continue posting about Ecuador, focusing on the corrupt outrages of Lenín Moreno’s government, in his economic policies that make the people of Ecuador poor and in the denunciation of his persecution and censorship, that vent their rage on imprisoned politicians like Jorge Glas.

Thank you to all of you that have been supporting us, we will not let you down.

Este artículo ha sido traducido del castellano por Paola Zabala del colectivo @RevolutionForeverLondon.