It considers sending an international mission to the country, full review at its General Assembly in San Diego, California, next week expected
Miami (March 28, 2011)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today described as “a serious attack on freedom of the press” the blockade of newspapers in Argentina at the weekend on the part of a group of demonstrators who acted with impunity due to lack of action by the police, despite the fact that recent court rulings ordered that the federal government must guarantee the circulation of news media.
Dozens of demonstrators who identified themselves as relatives of employees whose jobs have been outsourced from daybreak prevented the departure of delivery trucks from the buildings in the Buenos Aires Barracas district of the newspapers La Nación and Clarín. The La Nación blockade lasted three hours, while that at Clarín went on until after midday, thus preventing the distribution of its Sunday edition and that of its sister publication, the sports paper Olé.
IAPA President Gonzalo Marroquín declared, “Violations of press freedom in Argentina leave us increasingly concerned, because not even court rulings are being respected, which in the case of the blockades were held to be illegal and unconstitutional.”
Marroquín, president of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Siglo 21, added, “We have before us a serious attack on freedom of the press, firstly due to an action that restricts citizens’ access to a news media and secondly because of the impunity with which the demonstrators can act against such a right, given the failure of the police to comply with the order of a judge.”
In December and January civil court judge Gastón Polo Olivera issued a ruling prohibiting blockades of the printing plants and ordered Security Minister Nilda Garré to ensure compliance with the ruling. He held that the right to demonstrate cannot hinder the right to freedom of the press.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, expressed surprise at the events, given that the IAPA had been warned last week about statements by pro-government labor union officials threatening to blockade media that criticized union leader Hugo Moyano, a man who has given rise to controversies in the South American nation. “It is obvious that in this, as in the other protests, there is no legitimate union demand, but rather political opportunism against the newspapers,” Rivard said.
The Committee’s co-chairman, Claudio Paolillo, editor of the Uruguayan weekly news magazine Búsqueda, added, “The government should take immediate steps to penalize this outrage and violation of a court order which amounts to an attack upon press freedom.” He recalled that to prevent the circulation of the media is a flagrant act that is condemned by the Declaration of Chapultepec and the Organization of American States’ Declaration of Freedom of Expression, among other international documents signed by the Argentine government.
The protest and restriction of the newspapers in Buenos Aires was the fifth such action reported in recent months. It will be the subject of an in-depth debate during the IAPA’s General Assembly to be held next week in San Diego, California, and which Marroquín indicated “is accelerating our organization’s plans to send an international mission to that country very shortly.”
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
