MIAMI, Florida (January 19, 2012)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today described as “a serious risk and setback” for press freedom in Argentina the imposition of newsprint importation quotas that has just been imposed by the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
In a resolution signed yesterday the Argentine administration set out rules for the importation of the main supply for newspaper companies, less than a month after Congress, at the initiative of the Executive Branch, declared the production, distribution and commercialization of newsprint to be of public interest.
Gustavo Mohme, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, said it was “a serious risk for press freedom to impose quotas on the purchase or importation of newsprint,” explaining that “in our experience we have seen that restriction of free access to newsprint has traditionally been used as a means of applying pressure to silence critical voices.”
The IAPA repeated its repudiation of the law passed in December, saying as well that the unfettered importation or access to newsprint – as established in the Declaration of Chapultepec – is a guarantee in line with international standards of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
Mohme said that the IAPA regrets that the Argentine government, in the context of a frontal attack upon two of the South American country’s leading newspapers, Clarín and La Nación, and because of its desire to control the newsprint company Papel Prensa, of which they are all shareholders, would take actions that “bring back to the nation its worst periods, indirectly restrict the right of all Argentines to freedom of expression and impose on all newspapers restrictions that did not exist before.
The regulations impose quarterly caps on the importation and production of newsprint and leave its supervision in the hands of the Interior Commerce Ministry, headed by Guillermo Moreno. Also established are production requirements for Papel Prensa, and it is feared that if they are not complied with the government could take advantage of that situation to take over the company.
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.
