If anyone still wonders whether the WikiLeaks assault concerns freedom of expression or hostility toward the United States, fresh evidence appears in, of all places, Quito, Ecuador. The anti-American regime of President Rafael Correa offered “residency” to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

“We think it would be important not only to converse with [Assange] but to listen to him,” Ecuadorean Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas told the Associated Press. Ecuador’s regime invited Assange to “freely expound” and see what it is like in “friendly countries.” Kintto praised Assange for “trying to get light out of the dark corners of [state] information.”

Here is the problem: the Correa regime has one of the worst records in the Western Hemisphere on freedom of expression. The situation for independent journalists is so troubling that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reportedly raised the issue with Correa during her visit to Quito last June. Perhaps Correa is taking a poke at Clinton by offering asylum to the man who managed to embarrass America’s top diplomat.

Here’s the problem: the Correa regime has one of the worst records in the Western Hemisphere on freedom of expression.

In its report “Attacks on the Press 2009,” the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) summarized its concerns by noting that, last year, “Correa intensified his attacks on critical news media, calling them ignorant and deceitful. As Correa used his weekly radio address to assail the press, his administration singled out critical outlets for regulatory action.” The CPJ cited the imprisonment of two journalists on “defamation charges” and complained about legislation, which was subsequently approved by the Correa’s majority in Ecuador’s Congress, that “would restrict freedom of expression.”

According to the CPJ, Correa uses public denunciation, regulatory scrutiny, and judicial harassment to put any media critic on the defensive. The president is not afraid to dirty his hands in the process, using his public addresses to personally attack the independent press as “a sewer,” “ignorant,” “trash talking,” “liars,” “unethical,” “mediocre,” and “political actors who are trying to oppose the revolutionary government.”

The prestigious Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) has expressed similar concerns about the Ecuadorean regime’s efforts to curtail free expression. In testimony this past June before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, IAPA President Alejandro Aguirre reported, “Ecuador recently approved a communication law that requires the imposition of mandatory membership to a national journalists association; prior censorship; and a legal requirement to observe a government mandated ethical conduct. These types of laws are becoming a disturbing trend in the hemisphere.”

Correa also manipulated the courts and Congress to punish media owners Roberto and William Isaias for their two television stations’ independent reporting on his authoritarian conduct.

As I wrote in the Miami Herald in June, the State Department’s 2009 human rights assessment quotes Correa branding the media “a grave political enemy [that] needs to be defeated.” In March, journalist Emilio Palacio of Guayaquil’s El Universo newspaper was sentenced to three years in jail for accusing a Correa crony of sending a mob to attack the paper after it published a series of critical articles. Palacio and fellow journalists say that the judge was doing Correa’s bidding to muzzle the media.

Correa also has manipulated the courts and Congress to punish media owners Roberto and William Isaias for their two television stations’ independent reporting on his authoritarian conduct. Since their 200 properties (including two television stations) were seized in mid-2008, the Isaias brothers have been subjected to a politically charged prosecution bent on criminalizing media criticism.

So what do Ecuadorean caudillo (strongman) Correa and WikiLeaks front man Assange have in common? A zealous defense of freedom of expression? Hardly. Hypocrisy? Hostility to the United States? Bingo.

Apparently, Correa and his ilk are thrilled that the WikiLeaks disclosures have put the United States on the defensive and embarrassed Clinton for daring to criticize his sorry record. It should make us wonder why the State Department, up to now, had been trying to warm relations with Correa in spite of his knee-jerk animosity to U.S. interests and values.

There is an expression in Spanish: Dime con quien te juntas, y te digo quien eres. My father translated it this way: “Tell me who you run with, and I’ll tell you who you are.”

If Rafael Correa is a friend of Julian Assange, he is no friend of ours.

* Roger F. Noriega was ambassador to the Organization of American States from 2001 to 2003 and assistant secretary of State from 2003 to 2005. He is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and managing director of Vision Americas LLC, which represents U.S. and foreign clients.